


:ll 



NILE NOTES. 



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NILE NOTES 



e/ 



OF A HOWADJI. 




WD 



^ 



BY 



GEOEGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 



NEW YORK:. 

DIX, EDWARDS & CO., 321 BROADWAY 

1857. 



• - ■ .1 * ^ * 









Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the yeai- 1856, by 

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 

the Southern District of New York. 



'^tIit'P>R ^ IIOLMAX, 

Printers and Stereotypers. X. Y. 



WITHDRAW 4 



'• A foutra for the world and worldlings base, 
I wng- of Africa and golden joys." 

King Henry IV,, Part ii. 

" or I described 

Gi'cat Egypt's flaring sky, or Spain's cork groves." 

Robert Browning's " Paracelsus." 

" If it be asked why it is called the Nile, the answer is, because it has 
beautiful and good water." 

Wernes " White Nile." 

" What, then, is a Howadji?" said the Emperor of Ethiopia, draining a 
beaker of crocodile tears. 

"Howadji," replied the astute Arabian, <' is our name for merchants ; 
and as only merchants travel, we so call travellers." 

" Allah-'hu Akbar," said the Emperor of Ethiopia. " God is great." 
Linkum Fidelitis's " Calm Crocodile, or the Sphinx unriddled." 

" He saw all the rariti<3s at Cairo, as also the Pyramids, and sailing 

up the Nile, viewed the famous towns on each side of that river." 

Story of Ali Cogia, in the Arabian Nights. 

" Canopus is afar off, Memnon rcsoundeth not to the sun, and Nilus 
heareth strange voices." 

Sir Thomas Broiviie. 

" There can one chat v/ith mummies in a pyramid, and breakfast 

on basilisks' eggs. Thither, then, Homunculus Mandrake, son of the 
great Paracelsus ; languish no more in the ignorance of those climes, but 
abroad with alembic and crucible, and weigh anchor for Egypt." 

Death's Jest Boole, or the Fool's Tragedy. 



.• *f • 



PREFACE. 



When the Persian Poet Hafiz was asked by the Philoso- 
pher Zencla what he was good for, he replied : 
"Of what use is a flo,wer?" 

" A flower is good to smell," said the philosoplier. 
"And I am good to smell it," said the poet. 



CONTENTS. 



"•^tv. 



PAGE 

I. — Going to Boulak, .... .1 

II. — The Drag-6-men, ... .10 

III. — Hadji Hamed, 22 

IV.— The Ibis Sings, .... .29 

v.— The Crew, 37 

YI.— The Ibis Flies, 47 

YII. — The Landscape, 54 

YIIL— Tracking, 61 

IX.— Flying, 67 

X. — Yerde Giovane and Fellow-Mariners, . 71 

XI. — Yerde piu Giovane, 77 

XII. — AsYooT, . . . . . . . 85 

XIII.— The Sun, G9 

XIY.— Thebes Triumphant, 103 

XY.— The Crocodile, 105 

XYI. — Getting Ashore, 114 

XYII.— Fair Frailty, 117 

XYIII. — Fair Frailty — continued, . . . 124 

XIX. — KusHUK Arnem, 130 

XX. — Terpsichore, 140 

XXI.— Sakias, 146 

XXII. — Under the Palms, . . . . .152 
XXIII.— Alms! Shopkeeper! 165 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XXIV.— Syene, . : 168 

XXy.— Treaty of SVexe, 175 

XXVI.-^The Cataract, 184 

XXYIL— Nubian Welcome, 192 

XXVIII.— PHIL.E, 197 

XXIX. — A Crow that flies ix Heaven's Sweetest 

Air, 20G 

XXX. — Southward, 215 

XXXI.— Ultima Thule, .224 

XXXII. — Northward, .234 

XXXIII.— By the Grace of God, 250 

XXXIV.— Flamingoes, 260 

XXXV.— Cleopatra, 265 

XXXVI.— Memnon, . 283 

XXXVII.— Dead Kings, 293 

XXXVIII.— Buried, 300 

XXXIX.— Dead Queens, 308 

XL.— Et CETT3RA, 312 

XLI. — The MemnoniUxM, 310 

XLII. — Medeenet Haboo, 321 

XLIIL— Karnak, 329 

XLIV.— Pruning, 339 

XLV.— Per Contra, .'346 

XLVI.— Memphis, 352 

XLVII.— Sunset, .361 




I. 

GOING TO BOULAK. 

In a gold and purple December sunset, the Pacha 
and I walked down to the boat at Boulak, the port 
of Caho. The Pacha was my friend, and it does 
not concern you, gracious reader, to know if he 
were Sicilian, or Syrian ; whether he wore coat or 
kaftan, had a hareem, or was a baleful bachelor. 
The air was warm, like a May evening in Italy. 
Behind us, the slim minarets of Cairo spired shin- 
ingly in the brilliance, like the towers of a fairy city, 
under the sunset sea. 

These minarets make the Eastern cities so beauti- 
ful. The heavy mound-like domes and belfries of 
western Europe are of the earth, earthy. But the 
mingled mass of building, which a city is, soars 
lightly to the sky, in the lofty minarets on whose 
gold crescent crown the sun lingers and lingers, 
making them the earliest stales of evening. 

To our new eyes every thing was picture. Vainly 

the broad road was crowded with Muslim artisans 
1 



NILE NOTES. 



home-returning from their work. To the mere 
Muslim observer, they were carpenters, masons, 
laborers, and tradesmen of all kinds. We passed 
many a meditating Cairene, to whom there was no- 
thing but the monotony of an old story in that even- 
ing and on that road. Bat we saw all the pageantry 
of oriental romance quietly donkeying into Cairo. 
Camels, too, swaying and waving like huge phantoms 
of the twilight, horses with strange gay trappings 
curbed by tawny, turbaned equestrians, the peaked 
toe of the red slipper resting in the shovel stirrup. 
It was a fair festal evening. The whole world was 
masquerading, and so well that it seemed reality. 

I saw Fadladeen with a gorgeous turban and a 
gay sash. His chibouque, w^ound with colored silk 
and gold threads, was borne behind him by a black 
slave. Fat and funny was Fadladeen as of old ; and 
though Fermorz was not by, it was clear to see m 
the languid droop of his eye, that choice Arabian 
verses were sung by the twilight in his mind. 

Yet was Venus still the evening star ; for behind 
him, closely veiled, came Lalla Rookh. She was 
wrapped in a vast black silken bag, that bulged like 
a balloon over her donkey. But a star-suifused 
evening cloud was thait bulky blackness, as her twin 
eyes shone forth liquidly lustrous. 

Abon Hassan sat at the city gate, and I saw Har- 



GOING TO BOULAK. 3 

oun Alrashid quietly coming up in that disguise of a 
Moussoul merchant. I could not but wink at Abon, 
for I knew him so long ago in the Arabian Nights. 
But he rather stared than saluted, as friends may, in 
a masquerade. There was Sinbad the porter, too, 
hurrying to Sinbad the Sailor. I turned and 
watched his form fade in the twilight, yet I 
doubt if he reached Bagdad in time for the eighth 
histoiy. 

Scarce had he passed, when a long string of 
donkeys ambled by, bearing, each, one of the inflated 
balloons. It was a hareem taking the evening air. 
A huge eunuch was the captain, and rode before. 
They are bloated, dead-eyed creatures, the eunuchs 
— ^but there be no eyes of greater importance to 
marital minds. The ladies came gaily after, in 
single file, chatting together, and although Araby's 
daughters are still born to blush unseen, they looked 
earnestly upon the staring strangers. Did those 
strangers long to behold that hidden beauty? 
Could they help it if all the softness and sweetness 
of hidden faces radiated from melting eyes ? 

Then came Sakkas — men with hog skins slung 
over their backs, fall of water. I remembered the 
land and the time of puttinglP^vine into old bottles, 
and was shoved back beyond glass. Pedlers — 
swarthy fatalists in lovely lengths of robe and tur- 



4 NILE NOTES. 

ban, cried their wares. To our Frank ears, it was 
mere Babel jargon. Yet had erudite Mr. Lane 
accompanied us, Mr. Lane, the eastern Englishman, 
who has given us so many golden glimpses into the 
silence and mystery of oriental life, — like a good 
genius revealing to ardent lovers the very hallowed 
heart of the hareem, — we should have understood 
those cries. 

We should have heard " Sycamore figs — 
Grapes" — meaning that said figs were offered, and the 
sweetness of sense and sound tliat *' grape" hath was 
only bait for the attention ; or " Odors of Paradise, 
O flowers of the henna," causing Muslim maidens 
to tingle to their very nails' ends ; or, indeed, these 
pedler poets, vending water-melons, sang, "Con- 
soler of the embarrassed, O Pips." Were they not 
poets, these pedlers, and full of all oriental extrava- 
gance ? For the sweet association of poetic names 
shed silvery sheen over the actual article offered. The 
unwary philosopher might fancy that he was buy- 
ing comfort in a green water-melon, and the pietist 
dream of mementoes of heaven, in the mere earthly 
vanity of henna. 

But the philanthropic merchant of sour limes 
cries, " God make thei» light— limes"— meaning not 
the fruit nor the stomach of the purchaser, but his 
purse. And what would the prisoners of the pass- 



GOING TO BOULAK. 5 

ing black balloons say to the ambiguousness of 
" The work of the bull, maidens !" innocently 
indicating a kind of cotton cloth made by bull- 
moved machinery ? Will they never have done 
with hieroglyphics and sphinxes, these Egyptians ? 
Here a man, rose-embowered, chants, "The rose is 
a thorn, from the sweat of the prophet it bloomed" 
— meaning simply, "Fresh roses." 

These are masquerade manners, but they are 
pleasant. The maiden buys not henna only, but a 
thought of heaven. The poet not water-melons 
only, but a dream of consolation, which truly he 
will need. When shall we hear in Broadway, 
** Spring blush of the hillsides, strawberries," or 
"Breast buds of Yenus, O milk." Never, never, 
until milkmen are turbaned and berrywomen bal- 
looned. 

A pair of Persians w^ound among these pedlers, 
clad in their strange costume. They wore high 
shaggy hats and undressed skins, and in their girdles 
shone silver-mounted pistols and daggers. They 
had come into the West, and were loitering along, 
amazed at what was extremest East to us. They 
had been famous in Gotham, no Muscat envoy more 
admired. But nobody stared at them here except 
us. We Were the odd and observed. We had 
strayed into the universal revel, and had forgotten 



b NILE NOTES. 

to don turbans at the gate. Pyramids ! thought 
I, to be where Persians are comraonplace. 

In this brilliant bewilderment we played only the 
part of Howadji, which is the universal name for 
traveller — the " Forestiero" of Italy, It signifies 
merchant or shopkeeper ; and truly the Egyptians 
must agree with the bilious Frenchman that the 
English are a nation of shopkeepers, seeing them 
swarm forever through his land. For those who 
dwell at Karnak and in the shadow of Memnon, 
who build their mud huts upon the Edfoo Temple, 
and break up Colossi for lime, can not imagine any 
travel but that for direct golden gain. Belzoni was 
held in the wiser native mind to be a mere Douster- 
swivel of a treasure-hunter. Did not Hamed Aga 
come rushing two days' journey with two hundred 
men, and demand of him that large golden cock full 
of diamonds and pearls ? Think how easily the 
Arabian Nights must have come to such men ! 
Sublime stupidity ! O Egyptians. 

And so advancing, the massively foliaged acacias 
bowered us in golden gloom. They fringed and 
arched the long road. Between their trunks, like 
noble columns of the foreground, we saw the pyra- 
mids rosier in the western rosiness. Their forms 
were sculptured sharply in the sunset. We knew 
that they were on the edge of the desert ; that their 



G I N G T O li O U L A Iv . 7 

awful shadows darkened the sphinx. For so fair and 
festal is still the evening picture in that delicious 
climate, in that poetic land. We breathed the 
golden air, and it bathed our eyes with new vision. 
Peach-Blossom, who came with us from Malta, 
solemnly intent " to catch the spirit of the East," 
could not have resisted the infection of that en- 
chanted evening. 

I know you will ask me if an Eastern book can 
not be written without a dash of the Arabian Nights, 
if we can not get on without Haroun Ah'ashid. No, 
impatient reader, the East hath, throughout, that fine 
flavor. The history of Eastern life is embroidered 
to our youngest eyes in that airy arabesque. What, 
to even many of us very wise ones, is the history of 
Bagdad, more than the story of our revered caliph ? 
Then the romance of travel is real. It is the man 
going to take possession of the boy's heritage, those 
dear dreams of stolen school-hours over wild ro- 
mance ; and in vain would he separate his poetry 
from his prose. Given a turban, a camel, or a palm 
tree, and Zobeide, the Princess Badoura and the 
youngest brother of the Barber step forward into 
the prose of experience. 

For as we leave the main road and turn finally 
from the towers, whose gold is graying now, behold 
the parting picture and confess the East. 



NILE NOTES. 



The moon has gathered the golden light in her 
shallow cup, and pours it paler over a bivouac of 
camels, by a sheik's white-domed tomb. They 
growl and blubber as they kneel with their packs 
of dates, and almonds, and grain, oriental freight 
mostly, while others are already down, still as 
sphinxes. The rest sway their curved necks silently, 
and glance contemptuously at the world. 

The drivers, in dark turbans and long white robes, 
coax and command. The dome of the sheik's 
crumbling tomb is whiter in the moonlight. The 
brilliant bustle recedes behind those trees. A few 
Cairenes pass by unnoticing, but we are in desert 
depths. For us all the caravans of all Arabian ro- 
mance are there encamping. 

The Howadji reached at length the Nile, gleam- 
ing calm in the moonlight. A fleet of river boats 
lay moored to the steep stony bank. The Nile and 
the Pyramids had bewitched the night ; for it was 
full of marvellous pictures and told tales too fair. 
Yet do not listen too closely upon the shore, lest 
we hear the plash and plunge of a doomed wife or 
slave. These things have not passed away. This 
luxuriant beauty, this poetry of new impressions, 
have their balance. This tropical sun suckles serpents 
with the same light that adorns the gorgeous flow- 
ers. In the lush jungle, splendid tigers lurk— ah ! 



GOING TO BOULAK. 9 

in our poetic Orient beauty is more beautiful, but 
deformity more deformed. The excellent EfFendi or 
paternal Pacha has twenty or two hundred wives, 
and is, of necessity, unfaithful. But if the ballooned 
Georgian or Circassian slips up, it is into the re- 
morseless river. 

Yet with what solemn shadows do these musings 
endow the Egyptian moonlight. They move invisi- 
ble over the face of the waters, and evoke another 
creation. Columbus sailed out of the Mediterranean 
to a new world. We have sailed into it, to a new 
one. The South seduces now, as the West of old. 
When we reach one end of the world, the other has 
receded into romantic dimness, and beckons us 
backward to explore. The Howadji seek Cathay 
In the morning, with wide-winged sails, we shall 
fly beyond our history. Listen ! How like a ped- 
ler-poet of Cairo chanting his wares, moans Time 
through the Eternity — " Cobwebs and fable, 
history!" 



II. 

THE DIUG'-O-MEN. 

As we stepped on board, we should have said, " In 
the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful." 
For so say all pious Muslim, undertaking an arduous 
task ; and so let all pious Howadji exclaim when 
they set forth with any of those " guides, philoso- 
phers, and friends," the couriers of the Orient — the 
Dragomen. 

These gentry figure well in the Eastern books. 
The young traveller, already enamored of Eothen's 
Dhemetri, or Warburton's Mahmoud, or Harriet 
Martineau's Alee, leaps ashore, expecting to find a 
very Pythias to his Damon mood, and in his constant 
companion to embrace a concrete Orient. These are 
his Alexandrian emotions and hopes. Those poets, 
Harriet and Eliot, are guilty of much. Possibly as 
the youth descends the Lebanon to Be3a'out, five 
months later, he will still confess that it was the ' 
concrete Orient ; but own that he knew not the 
East, in those merely Mediterranean moods of hope 
and romantic reading. 



THE DRAGOMEN. 11 

The Howadji lands at Alexandria, and is immedi- 
ately invested by long lines of men in bright tur- 
bans and baggy breeches. If you have a slight 
poetic tendency, it is usually too much for you. 
You succumb to the rainbow sash and red slippers. 
" Which is Alee ?" cry you, in enthusiasm ; and lo ! 
all are Alee. No, but v^ith Dhemetri might there 
not be rich Eastern material and a brighter Eothen ? 
Yes, but all are Dhemetri. " Mahmoud, Mah- 
moud!" and the world of baggy breeches responds, 
*' Yes, sir." 

If you are heroic, you dismiss the confusing crowd, 
and then the individuals steal separately and secret- 
ly to your room and^ claim an audience. They have 
volumes of their own praise. Travelling Cockaigne 
has striven to express its satisfaction in the most 
graceful and epigrammatic manner. The " charac- 
ters" in all the books have a sonnet-like air, each fill- 
ing its page, and going to the same tune. There is no 
scepticism, and no dragoman has a fault. Records of 
such intelligence, such heroism, such perseverance, 
honesty and good cooking, exist in no other litera- 
ture. It is Eothen and the other poets in a more 
portable form. 

Some Howadji can not resist the sonnets and the 
slippers, and take the fatal plunge even at Alexan- 
dria. Wines and the ecstatic Irisli doctor did so 



V2 N I L E N O T E S . 

under our eyes, and returned six weeks later to 
Cairo, from the upper Nile, with just vigor enough 
remaining to get rid of their man. For the Turkish 
costume and the fine testimonials are only the illu- 
minated initials of the chapter. Very darkly mo- 
notonous is the reading that follows. 
y/ The Dragoman is of four species : the Maltese, or 
the able knave, — the Greek, or the cunning knave, 
— the Syrian, or the active knave, — and the Egyp- 
tian, or the stupid knave. They wear, generally, 
the Eastern costume. But the Maltese and the 
Greeks often sport bad hats and coats, and call 
themselves Christians. They are the most igno- 
rant, vain, incapable, and unsatisfactory class of men 
that the wandering Howadji meets. They travel 
constantly the same route, yet have no eyes to see 
nor ears to hear. If on the Nile, they smoke and 
sleep in the boat. If on the desert, they smoke and 
sleep on the camel. If in Syria, they smoke and 
sleep, if they can, on the horse. It is their own 
comfort — their own convenience and profit, which 
they constantly pursue. The Howadji is a bag of 
treasure thrown by a kind fate upon their shores, 
and they are the wreckers who squeeze, tear, and 
pull him, top, bottom, and sideways, to bleed him 
of his burden. / 

They should be able to give you every information 



THE DRAGOMEN. 13 

about your boat, and what is necessary, and what 
useless. Much talk you do indeed get, and assurance 
that every thing will be accurately arranged ; but 
you are fairly afloat upon the Nile before you dis- 
cover how lost upon the dragoman have been all his 
previous voyages. 

With miserable weakness they seek to smooth the 
moment, and perpetually baffle your plans, by tell- 
ing you not the truth, but what they suppose you 
wish the truth to be. Nothinsf is ever more than 
an hour or two distant. They involve you in absurd 
arrangements because " it is the custom ;" and he is a 
hardy Howadji who struggles against the vis iner- 
tiae of ignorant incapacity and miserable cheating 
through the whole tour. 

Active intelligence on the Howadji's part is very 
disgusting to them. If he scrutinize his expenses, — 
if he pretend to know his own will or way — much 
more to have it executed, the end of things clearly 
approaches to the dragomanic mind. The small 
knaveries of cheating in the price of every thing 
purchased, and in the amount of bucksheesh or gra- 
tuity on all occasions, are not to be seriously heeded, 
because they are universal. The real evils are the 
taking you out of your way for their own comfort, 
— the favoring a poor resting place or hotel, because 
they are well paid there, — and the universally 



14 NILE NOTES. 

unreliable information that they afford. Were they 
good servants, it were some consolation. But a ser- 
vile Eastern can not satisfy the western idea of good 
service. 

Perhaps it was a bad year for dragomen, as it was 
for potatoes. But such was the result of universal 
testimonv. 

Nero found a Greek at Alexandria, whose recom- 
mendations from men known to him were quite en- 
thusiastic. He engaged him, and the dragoman 
was the sole plague of Nero's Egyptian experience, 
but one combining the misery of all the rest. There 
were Wind and Rain, too, whose man was a crack 
dragoman, and of all such, oh ! enthusiastic reader, 
especially beware. They returned to Cairo chant- 
ing "miserere — miserere" — and in the spring, 
sought solace in the bosom of the scarlet Lady at 
Jerusalem. For which latter step, however, not 
even irate I, hold the dragoman responsible. 

Mutton Suet's man furnished his Nile larder, 
at the rate of eight boxes of sweet biscuit, and 
twenty bottles of pickles to two towels — a lickerous 
larder, truly, but I am convinced Mutton Suet's 
man's palate required sharp stimulants. 

The little Verde Giovane and Gunning changed 
their dragoman weekly w^iile they remained at 
Cairo. The difficulty was not all on one side. The 



THE DE AG OMEN. 15 

dragoman wanted to be master, and Verde knew 
not how to help it, and Gunning was ill of a fever. 
Those excellent Howadji did not recover from the 
East without a course of a half-dozen dragomen. 
/But most melancholy was the case of a Howadji, 
whom we met wandering in the remote regions of 
the Nile. He was a kind of flying Dutchman, al- 
ways gliding about in a barque haunted by a drago- 
man, and a reis or captain, who would not suffer 
him to arrive anywhere. The moons of three 
months had waxed and waned since they left Cairo. 
Winds never blew for that unhappy boat, currents 
were always adverse, — illness and inability seized 
the crew. Landing at lonely towns the dragoman 
sold him his own provisions, previously sent ashore 
for the purpose, at an admirable advance. Gradu- 
ally he was becoming the Ancient Mariner of the 
Nile. He must have grown grisly, — I am sure that 
he was sady^ 

One day as the fated boat ordahabieh came spec- 
trally sliding over the calm, our dragoman told us 
the story with sardonic smiles, and we looked with 
awful interest at the haunted barque. I saw the 
demoniac dragoman smoking by the kitchen, and the 
crew, faintly rowing, sang the slowest of slow 
songs. The flag, wind-rent and sun-bleached, clung 
in motionless despair to the mast. The sails were 



16 NILE NOTES. 

furled away almost out of sight. It was a windless 
day, and the sun shone spectrally. 

I looked for the mariner, but saw only a female 
figure in a London bonnet sitting motionless at the 
cabin window. 

The dragoman-ridden was probable putting on 
his hat. Was it a game of their despair to play 
arriving, and getting ready to go — for the lady sat 
as ladies sit in steamers, when they near the wharf 
— or was this only a melancholy remembrance of 
days and places, when they could don hat and bon- 
net, and choose their own way — or simply a mood 
of madness ?• 

They passed, and we saw them no more. I never 
heard of them again. They are still sailing on, 
doubtless, and you will hear the slow song and see 
the unnecessary bonnet, and behold a Howadji buy- 
ing his own provisions. Say " Pax vobiscum" as 
they pass, nor bless the dragomen. 

I heard but one Howadji speak well of his drago- 
man, and he only comparatively and partially. At 
Jerusalem the Rev. Dr. Duck dismissed his Maltese, 
and took an Egyptian — which was the Rev. Dr. 
Duck's method of stepping from the pan into the 
fire. At the same time, Eschylus, not our Greek, but 
a modern man of affairs, and not easily appalled at 
circumstances, banished his brace of Maltese, and 



THE DRAGOMEN. 17 

declared that he was wild with dragomen, and did 
not believe a decent one could exist. 

Yet Eschylus, in sad seriousness of purpose to 
accomplish the East, took another dragoman at 
Jerusalem, a baleful mortal with one eye, and a more 
able bandit than the rest. For this man Eschylus 
paid twenty piastres a day, board, at the hotel in 
Jerusalem. Polyphemus requested him with a noble 
frankness not to give the money to him, but to pay 
it directly to the landlord in person — meanwhile he 
delayed him, and delayed, in Jerusalem, until at 
parting, the landlord with equal frankness told 
Eschylus, that he was obliged to refund to the drago- 
men every thing paid for them, as otherwise he 
would discover that some cat or dog had twitched 
his table cloths, and destroyed whole services of 
glass and china — and this best hotel in the East, 
was to be discontinued for that and similar reasons. 
For the landlord had sparks of human sympathy 
even with mere Howadji, and the dragomen had 
sworn his ruin. All Howadji were taken to another 
house, and it was only by positive insistance that 
we reached this. 

Of all the knavery of Polyphemus, this book 
would not contain the history. At the end Eschy- 
lus told him quietly, that he had robbed him re- 
peatedly — that since engaging him he had heard 



18 NILE NOTES. 

that he was a noted scamp, — that he had been inso- 
lent to Madame Eschylus — that, in short — waxing 
warm as he perorated, that he was a damned rascal. 
Then he paid him, — for litigation is useless in the 
East, where the Christian word is valueless, — in- 
formed him that all English Howadji should be 
informed of his name and nature, after which, Poly- 
phemus endeavored to kiss his hand ! 

Then consider Leisurelie's Domenico Chiesa, 
Sunday Church, " begging your pardon, sir, I am il 
primo dragomano del mondo, — the first dragoman 
in the w^orld." 

*' Domenico," said Leisurelie one day in Jerusa- 
lem, "where is Mount Calvary?" You know, my 
young friend of fourteen years, that it is in the 
church of the holy sepulchre — but il primo drago- 
mano del mondo waved his hand vaguely around 
the horizon, with his eyes wandering about the far 
blue mountains of Moab, and " O begging your 
pardon, sir, it's there, just there." 

Such are our Arabic interpreters, such your con- 
crete Orient. Yet if you believe all your dragoman 
says — if you will only believe that he does know 
something, and put your nose into his fingers, you 
will go very smoothly to Beyrout, dripping gold all 
the way, and then improvise a brief pean in the 
book of sonnets. But if the Howadji mean to be 



THE DRAGOMEN. 19 

master, the romance will unroll like a cloud wreath 
from that poetic tawny friend, and he will find all 
and more than the faults of a European courier, 
with none of his capacities. 

0, golden-sleeved Commander of the Faithful, 
what a prelude to your praises. For Mohammed 
was the best we saw, and so agreed all who knew 
him. Dogberry was already his Laureate. Moham- 
med was truly " tolerable and not to be endured." 
He was ignorant, vain, and cowardly, but fairly 
honest, — extremely good-humored, and an abomina- 
ble cook. He was a devout Muslim, and had a pious 
abhorrence of ham. His deportment was grave and 
pompous, blending, the Turkish and Egyptian ele- 
ments of his parentage. Like a child he shrunk 
and shrivelled under the least pain or exposure. 
But he loved the high places and the sweet morsels ; 
and to be called of men, Effendi, dilated his soul 
with delight. He was always well dressed in the 
Egyptian manner, and bent in awful reverence be- 
fore " them old Turks" who, surrounded by a mul- 
titudinous hareem, and an army of slaves, were the 
august peerage of his imagination. 

His great glory, however, was a golden-sleeved 
bournouse of goat's hair, presented to him at Da- 
mascus by some friendly Howadji. This he gath- 
ered about him on all convenient occasions to 



20 NILE NOTES. 

create an impression. At the little towns on the 
Nile, and among the Arabs of the desert, how im- 
posing was the golden-sleeved Commander ! Occa- 
sionally he waited at dinner in this robe — and then 
was never Jove so superbly served. Yet the gran- 
deur, as usual, was inconsonant with agility, and 
many a wrecked dish of pudding or potatoes paid 
the penalty of splendor. 

So here our commander of the faithful steps into 
history, goldenly arrayed. Let him not speak for 
himself. For, although his English was intelligi- 
ble and quite sufficient, yet he recognized no auxili- 
ary but " 6e," and no tense but the present. Hence, 
when he wished to say that the tobacco would be 
milder when it had absorbed the water, he darkly 
suggested, " He be better when he be drink his 
water ;" and a huge hulk of iron lying just outside 
Cairo, was " the steamer's saucepan ;" being the 
boiler of a Suez steamer. Nor will the Pacha for- 
get that sunny Syrian morning, when the com- 
mander led us far and far out of our way for a *' short 
cut." Wandering, lost, and tangled in flaunting 
flowers, through long valleys and up steep hillsides, 
we emerged at length upon the path which we 
ought never to have left, and the good commander 
lighting his chibouque with the air of a general 
lighting his cigar after victory, announced impres- 



THE DRAGOMEN. 21 

sively, '' I be found that way by my sense, by my 
head!" Too vain to ask or to learn, he subjected 
us to the same inconveniences day after day, for the 
past disappears from the dragomanic mind as ut- 
terly as yesterday's landscape from his eye. 

The moon brightened the golden sleeve that first 
Nile evening, as the commander descended the steep 
bank, superintending the embarking of the luggage ; 
and while he spreads the cloth and the crew gather 
about the kitchen to sing, we will hang in our 
gallery the portrait of his coadjutor, Hadji Hamed, 
the cook. 



III. 

HADJI HAMED. 

I WAS donkeying one morning through the 
bazaars of Cairo, looking up at the exquisitely 
elaborated overhanging lattices, wondering if the 
fences of Paradise were not so rarely inwrought, 
dreaming of the fair Persian slave, of the Princess 
Shemselnihar, the three ladies of Bagdad, and other 
mere star dust, my eye surfeiting itself the while 
with forms and costumes that had hitherto existed 
only in poems and pictures, when I heard suddenly, 
*' Have you laid in any potatoes ?" and beheld beam- 
ing elderly John Bull by m}^ side. 

"It occurred to me." said he, " that the long days 
upon the Nile might be a little monotonous, and I 
thought the dinner would be quite an event." 

" Allah !" cried I, as the three ladies of Bagdad 
faded upon my fancy, " I thought we should live 
on sunsets on the Nile." 

The beaming elderly Bull smiled quietly and 
glanced at his gentle rotundity, while I saw bottles, 



HADJI II AMED. 23 

boxes, canisters, baskets, and packages of all sizes 
laid aside in the shop— little anti-monotonous 
arrangements for the Nile. 

*'I hope yon have a good cook," said John Bull, 
as he moved placidly avi^ay upon his donkey, and 
was lost in the dim depths of the bazaar. 

Truly we were loved of the Prophet, for our cook 
was also a Mohammed, an Alexandrian, and doubt- 
less especially favored, not for his name's sake only, 
but because he had been a pilgrim to Mecca, and 
hence a Hadji forever after. It is a Mohammedan 
title, equivalent to our *' major" and "colonel" as 
a term of honor, with this difference, that with us 
it is not always necessary to have been a captain to 
be called such ; but in Arabia is no man a Hadji 
who has not performed the Mecca pilgrimage. 
Whether a pilgrimage to Paris, and devotion to sun- 
dry shrines upon the Boulevards, had not been as 
advantageous to Hadji Hamed as kissing the holy 
Mecca-stone, was a speculation which we did not 
indulge ; for his cuisine was admirable. 

Yet I sometimes fancied the long lankness of the 
Hadji Hamed's figure, streaming in his far-flowing 
whiteness of garment up the Boulevards, and claim- 
ing kindred with the artistes of the " Cafe" or of the 
*'Maison doree." They would needs have sacrebleiCd. 
Yet might the Hadji have well challenged them to 



21 NILE NOTES. 

the " kara kooseh," or " warah mahshee," or the 
" yakhnee," nor have feared the result. Those are 
the cabalistic names of stuffed gourds, of a kind of 
mince-pie in a pastry of cabbage leaves, and of a 
stewed meat seasoned with chopped onions. Nor 
is the Christian palate so hopelessly heretic that it 
can not enjoy those genuine Muslim morsels. For 
we are nothing on the Nile if not eastern. The 
Egyptians like sweet dishes ; even fowls they stuff 
with raisins, and the rich conclude their repasts 
with draughts of khushaf — a water boiled with 
raisins and sugar, and flavored with rose. Mr. 
Lane says it is the " sweet water" of the Persians. 

And who has dreamed through the Arabian 
Nights that could eat without a thrill, lamb stuffed 
with pistachio nuts, or quaff sherbet of roses, haply 
of violet, without a vision of Haroun's pavilion and 
his lovely ladies ? Is a pastry cook's shop a mere 
pastry cook's shop, when you eat cheesecakes there ? 
Shines not the Syrian sun suddenly over it, making 
all the world Damascus, and all people Agib, and 
Benreddin Hassan, and the lady of beauty ? Even 
in these slightest details no region is so purely the 
property of the imagination as the East. We know 
it only in poetry, and although there is dirt and 
direful deformity, the traveller sees it no more than 
the fast-flying swallow, to whom the dreadful 



HADJI II A MED. 25 

mountain abysses and dumb deserts are but soft 
shadows and shining lights in his air-seen picture 
of the world. 

The materials for this poetic Eastern larder are 
very few upon the Nile ; chickens and mutton are 
the staple, and chance pigeons shot on the shore, 
during a morning's stroll. The genius of the artiste 
is shown in his adroit arrangement and concealment 
of this monotonous material. Hadji Hamed's genius 
was Italian, and every dinner w^as a success. He 
made every dinner the event which Bull was con- 
vinced it w^ould be, or ought to be ; and, perhaps, 
after all, the Hadji's soft custard was much the same 
as the sunset diet of which, in those Cairo days, I 
dreamed. 

Our own larder was very limited ; for as we 
sailed slowly along those shores of sleep, we observed 
too intense an intimacy of the goats with the sheep. 

The white-bearded goats wandered too much at 
their own sweet will with the unsuspecting lambs, 
or the not all unwilling elderly ^heep. The natives 
are not fastidious, and do not mind a mellow goat- 
flavor. They drink a favorite broth made of the 
head, feet, skin, wool, and hoofs, thrust into a pot 
and half boiled. Then they eat, with unction, the 
unctuous remains. We began bravely with roast 

and boiled ; but orders were issued, at length, that 

2 



26 NILE NOTES. 

no more sheep should be bought, so sadly convinced 
were the Howadji that evil communications corrupt 
good mutton. 

Yet in Herodotean days, the goats were sacred to 
one part of Egypt, and sheep to another. The 
Thebans abstained from sheep, and sacrificed goats 
only. For they said, that Hercules was very desir- 
ous of seeing Jupiter, but Jupiter was unwilling 
to be seen. As Hercules persisted, however, Jupiter 
flayed a ram, cut off the head and held it before 
his face, and having donned the fleece, so showed 
himself to Hercules — hence, our familiar Jupiter 
Ammon. 

But those of the Mendesian district, still says 
Herodotus, abstained from goats, and sacrificed 
sheep. For they said that Pan was one of the origi- 
nal eight gods, and their sculptors and painters 
represented him with the face and legs of a goat. 
Why they did so, Herodotus prefers not to mention ; 
as, indeed, our good father of history was so careful 
of his children's morals, that he usually preferred 
not to mention precisely what they most wish to 
know. 

It is curious to find that the elder Egyptians had 
the Jewish and Mohammedan horror of swine. The 
swine-herds were a separate race, like the headsmen 
of some modern lands, and married among them- 



HADJI HAMED. 27 

selves. Herodotus knows, as usual, why swine 
were abhorred, except on the festivals of the moon 
and of Bacchus, but as usual considers it more 
becoming not to mention the reason. 

Is it not strange, as we sweep up the broad river, 
to see the figure of that genial, garrulous old gossip, 
stalking vaguely through the dim morning twilight 
of history, plainly seeing what we can never know, 
audibly conversing with us of what he will, but 
ignoring what we wish, and answering no questions 
forever? One of the profoundest mysteries of the 
Egyptian belief, and, in lesser degrees, of all antique 
faiths, constantly and especially symbolized through- 
out Egypt, Herodotus evidently knew perfectly 
from his friendship with the priests, but perpetually 
his conscience dictates silence. — Amen, O venerable 
Father. 

I knew some bold Howadji who essayed a croco- 
dile banquet. They were served with crocodile 
chops and steaks, and crocodile boiled, roasted, and 
stewed. They talked very cheerfully of it afterward ; 
but each one privately confessed that the flesh 
tasted like abortive lobster, saturated with musk. 

Hadji Hamed cooked no crocodile, and had no 
golden-sleeved garment. He wore 'eree or cotton 
drawers, past their prime, and evidently originally 
made for lesser legs. That first evening he fluttered 



28 NILE NOTES. 

about the deck in a long white robe, like a solemn- 
faced wag playing ghost in a churchyard. By day 
he looked like a bird of prey, with long legs and a 
hooked bill. 



IV. 

THE IBIS SINGS. 

While the Hadji Hamed fluttered about the 
deck, and the commander served his kara kooseh, 
the crew gathered around the bow and sang. 

The stillness of early evening had spelled the 
river, nor was the strangeness dissolved by that 
singing. The men crouched in a circle upon the 
deck, and the reis, or captain, thrummed the tara- 
buka, or Arab drum, made of a fish-skin stretched 
upon a gourd. Raising their hands, the crew clap- 
ped them above their heads, in perfect time, not 
ringingly, but with a dead dull thump of the 
palms — moving the whole arm to bring them 
together. They swung their heads from side 
to side, and one clanked a chain in unison. So 
did these people long before the Ibis nestled to 
this bank, long before there were Americans to 
listen. 

For when Diana was divine, and thousands of 
men and women came floating down the Nile in 



30 NILE NOTES. 

barges to celebrate her festival, they sang and 
clapped, played the castanets and flute, stifling the 
voices of Arabian and Lybian echoes with a wild 
roar of revelry. 'They, too, sang a song that came 
to them from an unknown antiquity, Linus, their 
first and only song, the dirge of the son of the first 
king of Egypt. 

This might have been that dirge that the crew 
sang in a mournful minor. Suddenly one rose and 
led the song, in sharp jagged sounds, formless as 
lightning. *' He fills me the glass full and gives 
me to drink," sang the leader, and the low meas- 
ured chorus throbbed after him, " Hummeleager 
malooshee." The sounds were not a tune, but a 
kind of measured recitative. It went on constantly 
faster and faster, exciting them, as the Shakers 
excite themselves, until a tall gaunt Nubian rose in 
the moonlight and danced in the centre of the cir- 
cle, like a gay ghoul among his fellows. 

The dancing was monotonous, like the singing, a 
simple jerking of the m^uscles. He shook his arms 
from the elbows like a Shaker, and raised himself 
alternately upon both feet. Often the leader re- 
peated the song as a solo, then the voices died 
away, the ghoul crouched again, and the hollow 
throb of the tarabuka continued as an accompani- 
ment to the distant singing of Nero's crew, which 



THE IBIS SI XOS. 31 

came in fitful gusts through the little grove of 
sharp slim masts — 

" If jou meet my sweetheart, 
Give her my respects." 

The melancholy monotony of this singing in unison 
harmonized with the vague feelings of that first 
Nile night. The simplicity of the words became 
the perpetual childishness of the men, so that it 
was not ludicrous. It w^as clearly the music and 
words of a race just better than the brutes. If a 
poet could translate into sound the expression of a 
fine dog's face, or that of a meditative cow, the 
Howadji would fancy that he heard Nile music. 
For, after all, that placid and perfect animal ex- 
pression would be melancholy humanity. And 
with the crev/ only the sound was sad ; they 
smiled and grinned and shook their heads with 
intense satisfaction./ The evenins: and the scene 
were like a chapter of Mungo Park. I heard the 
African mother sing to him as he lay sick upon her 
mats, and the world and history forgotten, those 
strange sad sounds drew me deep into the dumb 
mystery of Africa. 

But the musical Howadji will find a fearful void 
in his Eastern life. The Asiatic has no ear and no 
soul for music. Like other savages and children. 



32 X I L E NOTES. 

he loves a noise and he plays on shrill pipes — on 
the tarabuka, on the tdr or tambourine, and a sharp 
one-stringed fiddle, or rabab. Of course, in your 
first oriental days, you will decline no invitation, 
but you v^ill grow gradually deaf to all entreaties 
of friends or dragomen to sally forth and hear music. 
You will remind him that you did not come to the 
East to go to Bedlam. 

This want of music is not strange, for silence is 
natural to the East and the tropics. When, sitting 
quietly at home, in midsummer, sweeping ever sun- 
ward in the growing heats, w^e at length reach the 
tropics in the fixed fervor of a July noon, the day is 
rapt, the birds are still, the wind swoons, and the 
burning sun glares silence on the world. 

The Orient is that primeval and perpetual noon. 
That very heat explains to you the voluptuous 
elaboration of its architecture, the brilliance of its 
costume, the picturesqueness of its life. But no 
Mozart was needed to sow Persian gardens with 
roses breathing love and beauty, no Beethoven to 
build mighty Himalayas, no Rossini to sparkle and 
sing with the birds and streams. Those realities 
are there, of which the composers are the poets to 
western imaginations. In the East, you feel and 
see music, but hear it never. 

Yet in Cairo and Damascus the poets sit at the 



THE IBIS SINGS. 33 

cafes, surrounded by the forms and colors of their 
songs, and recite the romances of the Arabian 
Nights, or of Aboo Zeyd, or of Antar, with no 
other accompaniment than the tar or the rabab, 
then called the " poet's viol," and in the same 
monotonous strain. Sometimes the single strain 
is touching, as when on our way to Jerusalem, the 
too enamored camel-driver, leading the litter of the 
fair Armenian, saddened the silence of the desert 
noon with a Syrian song. The high shrill notes 
trembled and rang in the air. The words said 
little, but the sound was a lyric of sorrow. The 
fair Armenian listened silently as the caravan 
wound slowly along, her eyes musily fixed upon 
the east, where the flower-fringed Euphrates flows 
through Bagdad to the sea. The fair Armenian 
had her thoughts and the camel-driver his ; also 
the accompanying Howadji listened and had 
theirs. 

The Syrian songs of the desert are very sad. 
They harmonize with the burning monotony of 
the landscape in their long recitative and shrill 
wail. The camel steps more willingly to that 
music, but the Howadji, swaying upon his back, 
is tranced in the sound, so naturally born of si- 
lence. 

Meanwhile our crew are singing, although we 



34 NILE NOTES. 

have slid upon their music and the moonlight, far 
forward into the desert. But these are the forms 
and feelings that their singing suggested. While 
they sang I wandered over Sahara, and was lost in 
the lonely Libyan hills, — a thousand simple stories, 
a thousand ballads of love and woe, trooped like 
drooping birds through the sky-like vagueness of 
my mind. Rosamond Grey, and the child of Ella 
passed phantom-like w^ith veiled faces, — for love, 
and sorrow, and delight, are cosmopolitan, building 
bowers indiscriminately of palm-treees or of pines. 

The voices died away like the muezzins', whose 
cry is the sweetest and most striking of all eastern 
sounds. It trembles in long rising and falling 
cadences from the balcony of the minaret, more 
humanly alluring than bells, and more respectful of 
the warm stillness of Syrian and Egyptian days. 
Heard in Jerusalem it has especial power. You sit 
upon your housetop reading the history whose pro- 
foundest significance is simple and natural in that 
inspiring clime — and as your eye wanders from the 
aerial dome of Omar, beautiful enough to have been 
a dome of Solomon's temple, and over the olives of 
Gethsemane climbs the mount of Olives — the balmy 
air is suddenly filled with a murmurous cry like a 
cheek suddenly rose-suffused — a sound near, and far, 
and everywhere, but soft, and vibrating, and alluring, 



THE IBIS SINGS. 35 

until you would fain don turban, kaftan, and slip- 
pers, and kneeling in the shadow of a cypress on 
the sun-flooded marble court of Omar, would be the 
mediator of those faiths, nor feel yourself a recreant 
Christian. 

Once I heard the muezzin cry from a little village 
on the edge of the desert, in the starlight, before 
the dawn. It was only a wailing voice in the air. 
The spirits of the desert were addressed in their 
own language, — or was it themselves lamenting, 
like water spirits to the green boughs overhanging 
them, that they could never know the gladness of 
the green world, but were forever demons and deni- 
zens of the desert? 3ut the tones trembled away 
without echo or response into the starry solitude ; 
— Al-la-hu ak-bar, Al-la-hu ak-bar ! 

So wdth songs and pictures, with musings, and 
the dinner of a Mecca pilgrim, passed the first 
evening upon the Nile. The Ibis clung to the bank 
at Boulak all that night. We called her Ibis be- 
cause the sharp lateen sails are most like wings, 
upon the Egyptian Nile was no winged thing of 
fairer fome. Yfe prayed Osiris that the law of 
his religion might 3^et be enforced against winds and 
waves. For whoever killed an Ibis, by accident or 
willfully, necessarily suffered death. 

The Lotus is a sweeter name, but consider all the 



36 NILE NOTES. 

poets who have so baptized then- boats ! Besides, 
soothly saying, this dahabieh of ours, hath no 
flower semblance, and is rather fat than fairy. The 
zealous have even called their craft Papyrus^ but 
poverty has no law. 



V. 

THE CREW. 

We are not quite off yet. Eastern life is leisurely. 
It has the long crane neck of enjoyment — and you, 
impatient reader, must leave your hasty habits, and 
no longer bolt your pleasure as you do your Tre- 
mont or Astor dinner, but taste it all the way down, 
as our turbaned friends do. Ask your dragoman 
casually, and he will regale you with choice in- 
stances of this happy habitude of the Orientals — or 
read the Arabian Nights in the original, or under- 
stand literally the romances that the poets recite at 
at the cafes, and you will learn how much you are 
born to lose — being born as you were, an American, 
with no time to live. 

Your Nile crew is a dozen nondescripts. They 
are Arabs — Egyptians — ^Nubians, and half-breeds of 
all kinds. They wear a white or red cap, and a 
long flowing garment which the Howadji naturally 
calls "night-gown," but which they term " zaa- 
boot" — although as Mrs. Bull said, she thought 



38 NILE NOTES. 

night-gown the better name. It is a convenient 
dress for river mariners ; for they have only to throw 
it off, and are at once ready to leap into the stream 
if the boat grounds — with no more incumbrance 
than Undine's uncle Kiihleborn always had. On 
great occasions of reaching a town they wear the 
'eree or drawers, and a turban of white cotton. 

Our reis was a placid little Nubian, with illim- 
itable lips, and a round, soft eye. He was a femi- 
nine creature, and crept felinely about the boat on 
his little spongy feet, often sitting all day upon the 
bow, somnolently smoking his chibouque, and let- 
ting us run aground. He was a Hadji too ; but. 
except that he did no work, seemed to have no 
especial respect from the crew. He put his finger 
into the dish with them, and fared no better. Had he 
been a burly brute, the savages would have feared 
him ; and, with them, fear is the synon3^m of 
respect. 

The grisly Ancient Mariner was the real captain 
— an old, gray Egyptian, who crouched all day long 
over the tiller, with a pipe in his mouth, and his 
firm eye fixed upon the river and the shore. He 
looked like a heap of ragged blankets, smouldering 
away internally, and emitting smoke at a chance 
orifice. But at evening he descended to the deck, 
took a cup of coffee, and chatted till midnight. As 



THE CREW. 39 

long as the wind held to the sail, he held to the 
tiller. The Ancient Mariner was the real worker 
of the Ibis, and never made faces at it, although the 
crew bemoaned often enough their hard fate. Of 
course, he tried to cheat at first, but when he felt 
the eye of the Pacha looking through him and 
turning up his little cunning, he tried it no more, 
or only spasmodically, at intervals, from habit. 

Brawny, one-eyed Seyd was first officer, the lead- 
er of the working chorus, and of the hard pulling 
and pushing. He had put out his own eye, like 
other Egyptians, many of whom did the same office 
to their children to escape Mehemet All's con- 
scription. He was a good-natured, clumsy boor — a 
being in the ape stage of development. He proved 
the veracity of the " Vestiges," that we begin in a 
fishy state, and advance through the tailed and 
winged ones. " We have had fins, we may have 
wings." I doubt if Seyd had yet fairly taken in his 
tail — he was growing. Had I been a German natu- 
ralist, I should have seized the good Seyd and pre- 
sented him to some " Durchlauchtiger," king or 
kaiser, as an ourang-outang from the white Nile; 
and I am sure the Teutons would have decreed it, 
a " sehr ausgezeichnete" specimen. 

Seyd, I fear, was slightly sensual. He had ulte- 
rior views upon the kitchen drippings. While the 



40 NILE NOTES. 

Howadji dined, he sat like an ourang-outang, gazing 
with ludicrous intensity at the lickerish morsels, 
then shifted into some clumsier squat, so that the 
Howadji could not maintain becoming gravity. At 
times he imbibed cups of coffee privately in the 
kitchen regions, then gurgled his cocoa-nut nargileh 
with spasmodic vigor. 

Seyd fulfilled other functions not strictly within 
his official w^alk. He washed the deck, brought 
coals to the chibouque, cleaned the knives and 
scraped kettles and pans. But after much watch- 
ing, I feared that Seyd was going backward — devel- 
oping the wrong way ; for he became more baboonish 
and less human every day. His feet were incredi- 
ble. I had not seen the Colossi then. Generally- 
he was barefooted. But sometimes, O goddess of 
Paris kids ! he essayed slippers. Then no bemired 
camel ever extricated himself more ponderously pe- 
dalled. These leather cases, that might have been 
heir-looms of Memnon, v^ere the completion of his 
full dress. Ah, Brummell ! Seyd en grande tenuc 
w^as a stately spectacle. 

There was Saleh or Satan, a cross between the 
porcupine and the wild-cat, whom I disliked as de- 
voutly as the Rev. Dr. Duck did the devil. And 
Aboo Seyd, a little old-maidish Bedoueen, who told 
wonderful stories to the crew and- prayed endlessly. 



THE CREW. 41 

He was very vain and direfully ngly, short, and 
speckled, and squat. On the Nile I believed in 
necromancy, and knew Aboo Seyd to be really a 
tree-toad humanized. I speculated vainly upon his 
vanity. It v/as the only case where I never could 
suspect the secret. 

Great gawky Abdallah then, God's favorite as his 
name imports, and a trusty mastiff of a man. Ab- 
dallah had few human characteristics, and was much 
quizzed by the crew under Satan's lead. He was 
invaluable for plunging among the grass and bushes, 
or into the water for pigeons which the Pacha had 
shot. And he loved his townsman Aboo Tar, or 
Congo, as we called him, as if his heart were as 
huge as his body. Congo was the youngest and 
brightest of the crew. He was black and slim, and 
although not graceful, moved rapidly and woi'ked 
well. The little Congo was the only one of the 
crew who inspired human interest. 

They are all bad workers, and lazy exceedingly. 
Never was seen such confused imbecility of action 
and noise, as in the shifting of sail. The ropes are 
twisted and tangled, and the red and black legs are 
twisted and tangled in the trouble to extricate them. 
Meanwhile the boat comes into the wind, the great 
sails flap fiercely, mad to be deprived of it ; the 
boats that had drifted behind come up, even pass, 



42 NILE NOTES. 

and the Pacha, wrapped in his capote, swears a little 
to ease his mind. 

Yet that Nile poet, Harriet Martineau, speaks of 
the " savage faculty" in Egypt. But " faculty" is 
a Western gift. Savages with faculty may become 
a leading race. But a leading race never degener- 
ates, so long as faculty remains. The Egyptians 
and Easterns are not savages, they are imbeciles. 
It is the English fashion to laud the Orient, and to 
prophecy a renewed grandeur, as if the East could 
ever again be as bright as at sunrise. The Easterns 
are picturesque and handsome, as is no nation with 
faculty. The coarse costume of a Nile sailor shames, 
in dignity and grace, the most elaborate toilet of 
Western saloons. It is drapery w^hose grace all men 
admire, and which all artists study in the antique. 
Western life is clean, and comely, and comfortable, 
but it is not picturesque. 

Therefore, if you would enjoy the land, you must 
be a poet, and not a philosopher. To the hurrying 
Howadji, the prominent interest is the picturesque 
one. For any other purpose, he need not be there. 
Be a pilgrim of beauty and not of morals or of poli- 
tics, if you would realize your dream. History 
sheds moonlight over the antique years of Egypt, 
and by that light you cannot study. Believe, be- 
fore you begin, that the great Asian mystery which 



THE CREW. 43 

Disraeli's mild-minded Taiicred sought to pene- 
trate, is the mystery of death. If you do not, then 
settle it upon the data you have at home ; for unless 
you come able and prepared for profoundest research 
and observation, a rapid journey through a land 
whose manners and language you do not understand, 
and whose spirit is utterly novel to you, will ill 
qualify you to discourse of its fate and position. 

That the East will never regenerate itself, con- 
temporary history shows ; nor has any nation of 
history culminated twice. The spent summer re- 
blooms no more — the Indian summer is but a memo- 
ry and a delusion. The sole hope of the East is 
Western inoculation. The child must suckle the 
age of the parent, and even " Medea's wondrous 
alchemy" will not restore its peculiar prime. If the 
East awaken, it will be no longer in the turban 
and red slippers, but in hat and boots. The West 
is the sea that advances forever upon the shore, the 
shore cannot stay it, but becomes the bottom of 
the ocean. The Western who lives in the Orient, 
does not assume the kaftan and the baggy breeches, 
and those of his Muslim neighbors shrink and disap- 
pear before his coat and pantaloons. The Turkish 
army is clothed like the armies of Europe. The 
grand Turk himself, Mohammed's vicar, the Com- 
mander of the Faithful, has laid away the magnifi- 



44 NILE NOTES. 

cence of Haroun Alrashid. and wears the simple red 
tarboosh, and a stiff suit of military blue. Cairo is 
an English station to India, and the Howadji does 
not -drink sherbet upon the Pyramids, but cham- 
pagne. The choice Cairo of our eastern imagination 
is contaminated with carriages. They are showing 
the secrets of the streets to the sun. Their silence 
is no longer murmurous, but rattling. The Uzbee- 
keeyah — ^public promenade of Cairo — is a tea-garden, 
of a Sunday afternoon crowded with ungainly 
Franks, listening to bad music. Ichabod, Ichabod ! 
steam has towed the Mediterranean up the Nile to 
Boulak, and as you move on to Cairo, through the 
still surviving masquerade of the Orient, the ciy of 
the melon-merchant seems the significant cry of 
each sad-eyed Oriental, " Consoler of the embar- 
rassed, Pips !" 

The century has seen the failure of the Eastern 
experiment, headed as it is not likely to be headed 
again, by an able and wise leader. Mehemet Ali 
had mastered Egypt and Syria, and was mounting 
the steps of the Sultan's throne. Then he would 
have marched to Bagdad, and sat down in Haroun 
Alrashid's seat, to draw again broader and more 
deeply the lines of the old Eastern empire. But 
the West would not suffer it. Even had it done so, 
the world of Mehemet Ali would have crumbled 



THE CREW. 45 

to chaos again when he died, for it existed only by 
his imperial will, and not by the perception of the 
people. 

At this moment the East is the El Dorado of Eu- 
ropean political hope. No single power dares to 
grasp it, but at last England and Russia will meet 
there, face to face, and the lion and the polar bear 
will shiver the desert silence with the roar of their 
struggle. It will be the return of the children to 
claim the birthplace. They may quarrel among 
themselves, but whoever v^ins, will introduce the 
life of the children and not of the parent. A pos- 
session and a province it may be, but no more an 
independent empire Father Ishmael shall be a 
shekh of honor, but of dominion no longer, and sit 
turbaned in the chimney corner, while his hatted 
heirs rule the house. The children will cluster 
around him, fascinated with his beautiful traditions, 
and curiously compare their little black shoes with 
his red slippers. 

Here, then, we throw overboard from the Ibis all 
solemn speculation, reserving only for ballast this 
chapter of erudite Eastern reflection and prophecy. 
The shade of the Poet Martineau moves awfully 
along these clay terraces, and pauses minatory under 
the palms, declaring that " He who derives from 
his travels nothing but picturesque and amusing 



46 NILE NOTES. 

impressions * * * uses like a child a most serious 
and manlike privilege." 

It is reproving, but some can paint, and some can 
preach, Poet Harriet, so runs the world a.wsLj. 
That group of palms waving feathery in the moon- 
light over the gleaming river is more soul-solacing 
than much conclusive speculation. 



VI. 

THE IBIS FLIES. 

At noon the wind rose. The Ibis shook out her 
wings, spread them and stood into the stream. 
Nero was already off. 

Stretching before us southward were endless 
groups of masts and sails. Palms fringed the west- 
ern shore, and on the' east, rose the handsome sum- 
mer palaces of Pachas and rich men. They were 
deep retired in full foliaged groves and gardens, of 
rose white and shining directly over the water. 
The verandahs were shaded with cool, dark-green 
blinds, and spacious steps descended stately to the 
water, as proudly as from Venetian palaces. Grace- 
ful boats lay moored to the marge, the lustrous dark- 
ness of acacias shadowed the shore, and an occasional 
sakia or water-wheel began the monotonous music 
of the river. 

Behind us from the city, rose the alabaster mina- 
rets of the citadel mosque — snow spires in the deep 
blue — and the aerial elegance of the minor minarets 



4S NILE NOTES. 

mingling with palms, that seemed to grow in un- 
known hanging-gardens of delight, were already a 
graceful arabesque upon the sky. The pyramids 
watched us as we went — staring themselves stonily 
into memory forever. The great green plain between 
us came gently to the water, over whose calm gleam 
skimmed the Ibis with almost conscious delight 
that she was flying to the South. The Howadji, 
meanwhile, fascinated with the fair auspices of their 
voyage, sat cross-legged upon Persian carpets sip- 
ping mellow Mocha, and smoking the cherry-sticked 
chibouque. 

As life without love, said the Cairene poet to me 
as I ordered his nargileh to be refilled with tum- 
bak — choice Persian tobacco — is the chibouque 
without coffee. And as I sipped that Mocha, and 
perceived that for the first time I was drinking 
coffee, I felt that all Hadji Hamed's solemnity and 
painful Mecca pilgrimages were not purposeless nor 
without ambition. Why should not he prepare 
coffee for the choicest coterie of houris even in the 
Prophet's celestial pavilion? For a smoother sip 
is not- offered the Prophet by his fairest favorite, 
than his namesake prepared, and his other name- 
sake offered to us, on each Nile day. 

The Mocha is so fragrant and rich, and so per- 
fectly prepared, that the sweetness of sugar seems 



THE IBIS FLIES. 49 

at length quite coarse and unnecessary. It destroys 
the most delicate delight of the palate, which craves 
at last the purest flavor of the berry, and tastes all 
Arabia Felix therein. A glass of imperial Tokay in 
Hungary, and a fingan of Mocha in the East, are the 
most poetic and inspiring draughts. Whether the 
Greek poets, born between the two, did not fore- 
shadow the fascination of each, when they cele- 
brated nectar and ambrosia as divine delights, I 
leave to the most erudite Teutonic commentator. 
Sure am I that the delight of well-prepared Mocha 
transcends the sphere of sense, and rises into a 
spiritual satisfaction — or is it that Mocha is the 
magic that spiritualizes sense ? 

Yet it must be sipped from the fingan poised in 
the delicate zarf. The fingan is a small blue and 
gold cup, or of any color, of an egg's calibre, borne 
upon an exquisitely wrought support of gold or 
silver. The mouth must slide from the cup's brinr 
to the amber mouth-piece of the chibouque, draw- 
ing thence azure clouds of Latakia, the sweet mild 
weed of Syria. Then, wildered Western,. you 
taste the Orient, and awake in dreams. 

So waned the afternoon, as we glided gently be- 
fore a failing breeze, between the green levels of the 
Nile valley. The river was lively with boats. Dig- 

rnified dahabieh sweeping along like Pachas of im- 
3 



50 NILE NOTES. 

portance and of endless tails. Crafty little cangie, 
smaller barques, creeping on like EfFendi of lesser 
rank. The far rippling reaches were white with the 
sharp saucy sails, bending over and over, reproach- 
ing the water for its resistance, and, like us, pur- 
suing the South. The craft was of every kind. 
Huge lumbering country boats, freighted with filth 
and vermin, covered with crouching figures in 
blankets, or laden with grain ; or there were boats 
curiously crowded, the little cabin windows over- 
flowing with human blackness and semi-naked boys 
and girls, sitting in close rows upon the deck. 

These are first class frigates of the Devil's 
navy. They are slave boats floating down from 
Dongola and Sennaar. The wind does not blow 
for them. They alone are not white with sails, and 
running merrily over the water, but they drift 
slowly, slowly, with the weary beat of a few oars. 

The little slaves stare at us with more wonder 
than we look at them. They are not pensive or 
silent. The smile, and chat, and point at the How- 
adji and the novelties of the Nile, very contentedly. 
Not one kneels and inquires if he is not a man and 
a brother, and the Venuses, " carved in ebony," 
seem fully satisfied with their crisp, closely curling 
hair, smeared with castor oil. In Egypt and the 
East generally, slavery does not appear so sadly as 



^^ 



THE IBIS FLIES. 51 

elsewhere. The contrasts are not so vivid. It 
seems only an accident that one is master and the 
other slave. A reverse of relations w^ould not appear 
strange, for the master is as ignorant and brutal as 
the servant. 

Yet a group of disgusting figures lean and lounge 
upon the upper deck, or cabin I'oof. Nature, in 
justice to herself, has discharged humanity from 
their faces — only the human form remains — for 
there is nothing so revolting as a slave-driver wnth 
his booty bagged. In the chase, there may be ex- 
citement and danger, but the chase once successful, 
they sink into a torpidity of badness. But this is 
only a cloud floating athwart the setting sun. To 
our new Nile eyes, this is only proof that there 
are crocodiles beyond — happily not so repulsive, for 
they are not in the human shape. 

The slavers passed and the sun set over the gleam- 
ing river. A solitary heron stood upon a sandy 
point. In a broad beautiful bay beyond, the thin 
lines of masts were drawn dark against the sky. 
Palms and the dim lines of Arabian hills dreamed 
in the tranquil air, a few boats clung to the western 
bank, that descended in easy clay terraces to the 
water, their sails hanging in the dying wind. Sud- 
denly we were among them, close under the bank. 

The moon sloped westward behind a group of 



^2 NILE NOTES. 

palms, and the spell was upon us. We had drifted 
into the dream worid. From the ghostly highlands 
and the low shore, came the baying of dogs, mel- 
lowed by distance and the moonlight, into the weird 
measures of a black forest hunting. Drifted away 
from the world, yet, like Ferdinand, moved by 
voiceless music in the moonlight. 

" Come unto these yellow sands, 
And then take hands — 
Curtsied when you have, and list, 
(The wild waves whist,) 
Foot it featly here and there, 
And sweet sprites the burden bear. 
Hark, hark! 
The watch-dog'S bark." 

Such aerial witchery was in the night, for our 
Shakespeare was a Nile necromancer also. Drifted 
beyond the world, yet not beyond the poet. Flutes, 
too, were blown upon the Ihore, and horns and the 
chorus of a crew came sadly across the water with 
the faint throb of the tarabuka. Under those warm 
southern stars, was a sense of solitude and isolation. 
Might we not even behold the southern cross, when 
the clouds of Latakia rolled away ? Our own crew 
were silent, but a belated boat struggling for a 
berth among our fleet, disturbed the slumbers of a 
neighboring crew. One sharp, fierce cackle of dis- 
pute suddenly shattered the silence like a tropical 



THE IBIS FLIES. 53 

whirlwind, nor was it stiller by the blows mutually 
bestowed. Our chat of Bagdad and the desert was 
for a moment suspended. Nor did we wonder at the 
struggle, since Mars shone so redly over. But it 
died away as suddenly ; and inexplicably mournful 
as the Sphinx's smile, streamed the setting moon- 
light over the world. Not a ripple of Western 
feeling reached that repose. We were in the dream 
of the death of the deadest land. 



VII. 

THE LANDSCAPE. 

The Nile landscape is iiofc monotonous, although 
of one general character. In that soft air the lines 
change constantly, but imperceptibly, and are 
always so delicately lined and drawn, that the eye 
swims satisfied along the warm tranquillity of the 
scenery. 

Egypt is the valley of the Nile. At its \Yidest 
part it is, perhaps, six or seven miles broad, and is 
walled upon the west by the Libyan mountains, 
and upon the east by the Arabian. The scenery is 
simple and grand. The forms of the landscape 
harmonize with the forms of the impression of 
Egypt in the mind. Solemn, and still, and inexpli- 
cable, sits that antique mystery among the flow^ery 
fancies and broad green fertile feelings of your mind 
and contemporary life, as the sphinx sits upon the 
edge of the grain-green plain. No scenery is grand- 
er in its impression, for none is so symbolical. The 
land seems to have died w^ith the race that made 



THE LANDSCAPE. 55 

it famous — it is so solemnly still. Day after day 
unrolls to the eye the perpetual panorama of fields 
wide-waving with the tobacco, and glittering with 
the golden-blossomed cotton, among which half- 
naked men and women are lazily working. Palm- 
groves stand, each palm a poem, brimming your 
memory with beauty. You know from Sir Gard- 
ner Wilkinson, whose volumes are here your best 
tutor, that you are passing the remains of ancient 
cities, as the Ibis loiters languidly before the rising 
and falling north wind or is wearily drawn along 
by the crew filing along the shore. An occasional 
irregular reach of mounds and a bit of crumbling 
wall distract imagination as much with the future 
as the past, straining to realize the time when New 
York shall be an irregular reach of mounds, or a 
bit of crumbling wall. 

Impossible ? Possibly. But are we so loved of 
time, we petted youngest child, that the fate of his 
eldest gorgeous Asia, and Africa, its swart myste- 
rious twin, shall only frown at us through the mand 
fly? 

The austere Arabian mountains leave Cairo with 
us, and stretch in sad monotony of strength along 
the eastern shore. There they shine sandily, the 
mighty advanced guard of the desert. " Here," say 
they, and plant their stern feet forever, and over 



56 NILPJ NOTES. 

their shoulders sweep and sing the low wild winds 
from mid Arabia, "sand-grains outnumbering all 
thy dear drops of water are behind us, to maintain 
our might and subdue thee, fond, fair river !" 

But it glides unheeded at their base, lithely 
swinging its long unbroken phalanx of sweet 
water — waving gently against the immovable cliffs 
like palm branches of peace against a foe's serried 
front. 

Presently the Libyan heights a23pear, and the 
river is invested. A' sense of fate then enchants you, 
and you feel that the two powers must measure 
their might at last, and go forward to the cataract 
with the feeling of one who shall behold terrible 
battles. 

Yet the day, mindful only of beauty, lavishes all 
its light upon the mighty foes, adorning them each 
impartially for its own delight. Along the uniform 
Arabian highland, it swims, and flashes, and fades, 
in exquisite hues, magically making it the sapphire 
wall of that garden of imagination, which fertile 
Arabia is ; or, in the full gush of noon, standing it 
along the eastern horizon as an image of those 
boundless deserts, which no man can conceive, 
more than the sea, until he beholds them. 

But the advancing desert consumes cities of the 
river, so that fair fames of eldest history are now 



THE LANDSCAPE. 57 

mere names. Even the perplexed river sweeps 
away its own, but reveals richer reaches of green 
land for the old lost, and Arabia and Lybia are 
foiled forever. Forever, for it must be as it has 
been, until the fertility of the tropics that floats 
seaward in the Nile, making the land of Egypt as it 
goes, is exhausted in its source. 

But there is a profo under charm in the landscape, 
a beauty that grows more slowly into the mind, but 
is as perfect and permanent. Gradually the How- 
adji perceives the harmony of the epical, primitive, 
and grand character of the landscape, and the aus- 
tere simplicity of the Egyptian art. Fresh from the 
galleries of Europe, it is not without awe that he 
glides far behind our known beginnings of civiliza- 
tion, and standing among its primeval forms, realizes 
the relation of nature and art. 

There is no record of anything like lyrical poetry 
in the history of the elder Egyptians. Their 
theology was the sombre substance of their life. 
This fact of history the Howadji sees before he 
reads. 

Nature is only epical here. She has no little 
lyrics of green groves, and blooming woods, and se- 
questered lanes — no lovely pastoral landscape. But 
from every point the Egyptian could behold the 

desert heights, and the river, and the sky. This 
3* 



58 NILE NOTES. 

grand and solemn nature has imposed upon the art 
of the land, the law of its own being and beaut)''. 
/ Out of the landscape, too, springs the mystery of 
Egyptian character, and the character of its art. 
For silence is the spirit of these sand mountains, 
and of this sublime sweep of luminous sky — and 
silence is the mother of mystery. Primitive man so 
surrounded, can then do nothing but what is simple 
and grand. The pyramids reproduce the impres- 
sion and the form of the landscape in which they 
stand. The pyramids say, in the nature around 
them, " Man, his mark." 

Later, he will be changed by a thousand influ- 
ences, but can never escape the mystery that haunts 
his home, and will carve the Sphinx and the strange 
mystical Memnon. The sphinx says to the Howadji 
what Egypt said to the Egyptian — and from the 
fascination of her face streams all the yearning, 
profound and pathetic power that is the soul of the 
Egyptian day. 

So also from the moment the Arabian highlands 
appeared, we had in their lines and in the ever 
graceful and suggestive palms, the grand elements 
of Egyptian architecture. Often, in a luminously 
blue day, >as the Howadji sits reading or musing be- 
fore the cabin, the stratified sand mountain side, 
with a stately arcade of palms on the smooth green 



THE LANDSCAPE. 69 

below, floats upon his eye through the serene sky as 
the ideal of that mighty temple which Egyptian 
architecture stru stories to realize — and he feels that 
he beholds the seed that flowered at last in the 
Parthenon and all Greek architecture. 

The beginnings seem to have been the sculpture 
of the hills into their own forms, — vast regular 
chambers cut in the rock or earth, vaulted like the 
sky that hung over the hills, and like that, starred 
with gold in a blue space. 

From these came the erection of separate build- 
ings — but always of the same grand and solemn 
character. In them the majesty of the mountain is 
repeated. Man cons the lesson which Nature has 
taught him. 

Exquisite details follow. The fine flower-lil^e 
forms and foliage that have arrested the quick sen- 
sitive eye of artistic genius, appear presently as 
ornaments of his work. Man as the master, and the 
symbol of power, stands calm with folded hands in 
the Osiride columns. Twisted water reeds and 
palms, whose flowing crests are natural capitals, 
are addded. Then the lotus and acanthus are 
wreathed around the columns, and so the most 
delicate detail of the Egyptian landscape reap- 
peared in its art. 

But Egyptian art never loses this character of 



60 NILE NOTES. 

solemn sublimity. It is not simply infancy, it was 
the law of its life. The art of Egypt never offered 
to emancipate itself from this character, — it changed 
only when strangers came. 

Greece fulfilled Egypt. To the austere grandeur 
of simple natural forms, Greek art succeeded, as 
the flower to foliage. The essential strength is 
retained, but an aerial grace and elegance, an ex- 
quisite elaboration followed, as Eve followed Adam. 
For Grecian temples have a fine feminineness of 
character when measured with the Egyptian. That 
hushed harmony of grace — even the snow-sparkling 
marble, and the general impression, have this dif- 
ference. 

Such hints are simple and obvious — and there is 
no fairer or more frequent flower upon these charmed 
shores, than the revelations they make of the simple 
naturalness of primitive art. 



VIII. 

TRACKING. 

Our angels of annunciation, this Christmas eve, 
were the crews of the boats at Benisoeth, the first 
important town upon the river. They blew pipes, 
not unlike those of the pifferari in Rome, w^ho come 
from the Abruzzi at the annunciation, and play 
before the Madonna shrines until her son is born. 
The evening was not too cool for us to smoke our 
chibouques on the upper deck. There, in the gray 
moonlight, too, Aboo Seyd was turned to Mecca, 
and genuflexing and ground-kissing to a degree that 
proved his hopeless sinfulness. 

Courteous reader, that Christmas eve, for the first 
time, the Howadji went to bed in Levinge's bag. 
It is a net, warranted to keep mosquitoes out, and 
the occupant in, and much recommended by those 
who have been persuaded to buy, and those who 
have them to sell. I struggled into mine, and was 
comfortable. But the Pacha of two shirt tails 
was in a trying situation. For this perplexing 



62 NILE NOTES. 

problem presented itself — the candle being extin- 
guished, to get in ; or being in, to blow out the 
candle. " 'Peace on earth' there may be," said the 
Pacha, holding with one hand the candlestick, and 
with the other the chimney of the bag, "but there 
is none upon the water ;" and he stood irresolute, 
until, placing the candlestick upon the floor, and 
struggling into the bag, as into an unwilling shirt, 
the hand was protruded — seized the candlestick, 
and genius had cut the gordian knot of doubt. 

A calm Christmas dawned. It was a day to dream 
of the rose-radiance that trembles over the Mountains 
of the Moon : a day to read Werne's White Nile 
Journal, wdth its hourly record of tropical life 
among the simple races of the equator, and enchant- 
ing stories of acres of lotus bloom in Ethiopia. It 
was not difficult to fancy that we were following 
him, as we slid away from the shore and saw the 
half-naked people, the mud huts, and every sign of 
a race forever young. 

We sprang ashore for a ramble, and the Pacha 
took his gun for a little bird-murder. Climbing the 
bank from the water, we emerged upon the level 
plain, covered with an endless mesh of flowering 
lupin. The palm-grove beckoned friendly with 
its pleasant branches, through which the breath of 
the warm morning was whispering sweet secrets. 



TRACKING. 63 

I heard them. Fine Ear had not delicater senses 
than the Hovvadji may have in Egypt. I knew that 
the calm Christmas morning was toying with the 
subtle-winged Summer, under those palms — the 
Summer that had fled before me from Switzerland 
over the Italian vintage. Above my head w^as the 
dreamy murmurousness of summer insects swarming 
in the warm air. The grain was green, and the 
weeds were flowering at my feet. The repose of 
August weather brooded in the radiant sky. Whoso 
would follow the Summer, will find her lingering 
and loitering under the palm-groves of the Nile, 
when she is only a remembrance and a hope upon 
the vineyards of the Rhine, and the gardens of the 
Hudson. 

Aboo Seyd followed us, and we suddenly en- 
countered a brace of unknown Howadji. They 
proved to be Frenchmen; and had each a gun. 
Why is a Frenchman so unsphered, out of Paris ? 
They inquired for their boat with a tricolor, which 
we had not seen, and told us that there were wild 
boars in the palm-groves. Then they stalked away 
among the coarse, high, hilfeh grass, with both gun- 
barrels cocked. Presently the charge of one of 
them came rustling around our legs, through the 
grass. We hailed, and informed the hunters that 
we were pervious to shot. They protested and 



64 NILE NOTES. , 

demanded many thousand pardons, then discovered 
their boat and embarked to breakfast, to recount 
over their Bordeaux the morning hunt of sangliers 
and Anglais, for one of which, they probably mis- 
took us. 

We returned too, and ate pomegranates, but 
went ashore again, for this was a tracking day — a 
day when there is no wind, but the boat is drawn 
a few miles by the crew. There was a village near 
us under the palms, and the village smoke, aerialized 
into delicate blue haze, made with the sunset a 
glowing atmosphere of gold and blue, in which a 
distant palm-grove stood like a dream of faery. 
Querulous dogs were barking in the vicinity of the 
mud city ; for it deserved that name — a chaos of mud 
huts and inclosures, built apparently at random, 
and full of an incredible squalor, too animal to be 
sad. The agile Gauls were plunging across the 
plain, scrambling up little hillocks with their cocked 
muskets, causing us rueful reflections upon the 
frailty of human legs. Pop-pop, went the despe- 
radoes of hunters at the tame pigeons on the palms. 
We wended through the fields of sprouting beans. 
A few women and children lingered still, others 
were driving donkeys and buffaloes homeward — for 
these hard clay hovels were homes too. 

I foresee that the Egyptian sunsets will shine 



TRACKING. 65 

much too much, along these pages. But they are 
so beautiful, and every sunset is so new, that the 
Howadji must claim the law of lovers, and per- 
petually praise the old beauty forever young. 

This evening the sun swept suddenly into the 
west, drawing the mists in a whirlpool after him. 
The vortex of luminous vapor gradually diffused 
itself over the whole sky, and the Ibis floated in 
a mist of gold, its slim yards and masts sculp- 
tured like Claude's vessels in his sunsets. It paled 
then, gradually, and a golden gloom began the 
night. 

We emerged from the palms, on whose bending 
boughs doves sat and swung, and saw the gloom 
gradually graying over the genial Nile valley. As 
we neared the Ibis we met our third Mohammed, a 
smooth Nubian of the crew, and Seyd, the one-eyed 
first-officer, whom the Commander had sent to 
search for us. They carried staves, like beadles or 
like Roman consuls ; for they were to see that we 
" took no detriment" — " for the dogs and the impu- 
dent people," said Golden-sleeve, with bodeful 
head-shakings. 

Thou timorous Commander ! Hath not the Pacha 
a one-barreled gun and tales innumerable ? He said 
that Nero had passed the mud city only the night 
before. But did the moonhght show him what we 



66 NILE NOTES. 

saw — two Ibis perched, snowy white, upon the back 
of a buffalo ? 

Then, for the first time in their lives, the Howadji 
sat quietly smoking in the open air upon Christmas 
evening : but hunted no slipper, nor was misletoe 
hung in the cabin. 



IX. 

FLYING. 

The wind rose cheerly, the tricolor fluttered and 
dropped behind, and leaving all rivals, the eager 
Ibis ran wing and wing before the breeze. 

The bold mountains did not cease to bully. 
Sometimes they receded a little, leaving spaces of 
level sand, as if the impatient desert behind had, 
in some spots, pressed over and beyond them ; but 
they drew out again quite to the stream, and rose 
sheerly in steep, caverned cliffs from the water, 
housing wild fowl innumerable, that shrieked and 
cried like birds of prey before the mighty legions. 

Over these mountain shoulders, the winds not ; 

only sing, but, bloated into storms and sudden tem- < 

pests, they spring upon the leaning lateen sails that ] 

fly with eagerly-pointing yards beneath, as if to re- ' 

venge themselves upon the river, in the destruction \ 

of what it bears. Under the Aboofeyda and the • : 

Gebel Shekli Hereedee, and the Gebel Tookh, and i 

wherever else the mountains pile their frowning 



68 NILE NOTES. 

fronts in precipices along the shore, are the dangers 
of Nile navigation. 

A tranquil twilight breath wafted us beneath the 
first, and another sunset breeze ran us dashingly 
toward the Shekh Hereedee. But just when the 
evening was darkest, a sudden gust sprang upon us 
from the mountain. It shook the fleet, bold Ibis 
into trembling, but she succeeded in furling her 
larger wing, and, struggling through, she fled fast 
and forward in the dark, until, under Orion in the 
zenith and his silent society, she drew calmly to 
the shore, and dreamed all night of the serpent of 
Shekh Hereedee, who cured all woes but those of 
his own making. 

Neither was the Gebel Tookh our friend. The 
mountainous regions are always gusty, and the Ibis 
had been squall-struck several times, but ran at 
last free and fair before the wind, between shores 
serene, on which we could hear the call of women 
to each other, and, not seeing their faces, could 
fancy their beauty at will, and their worthiness to 
be nymphs of the Nile. 

We were still slipping swiftly along under the 
foresail, and the minarets of Girgeh glittered on the 
southern horizon. 

" Why not the mainsail," cried the Pacha, " in 
this lulling wind ?" 



FLYING. 69 

The Ibis shook out her great wing, and stood 
across, bending with the river, straight toward the 
Gebel Tookh. She plowed the water into flashing 
foam-furrow^s as we swept on. The very landscape 
was sparkling and spirited for that exciting speed. 
The half human figures upon the shore paused to 
watch us as we passed. But in the dark gulf under 
the mountain, where, on the steep strip of shore, 
the Nile had flung down to its foe a gauntlet of 
green, the gale that lives in Arab tradition along 
those heights, like an awful Afreet, plunged sud- 
denly upon us, and for a few moments the proud 
Ibis strained and quivered in its grasp. 

The dark waves dashed foam-tipped against her 
side, and seethed with the swell of a small sea, as 
the Ibis spurned them and flew on. Behind, one 
solitary Cangie was struggling with a loosely flap- 
ping sail, through a narrow channel, and before us 
was the point, round which, once made, we should 
fly before the wind. It was clear that we had too 
much canvass for the pass. The crew squatted im- 
becile, wrapped in their blankets, and stared in 
stupid amazement at the cliff and the river. The 
ancient mariner, half crouching over the tiller, and 
showing his two surviving teeth to the gale, fast- 
ened his eye upon the boat and the river, while the 
wild wind danced about his drapery, fluttering all 



70 NILE NOTES. 

his rags, and howling with delight as it forced him 
to strain at his tiller, or with rage as it feared his 
mastery. 

I did not observe that the Muslim were any more 
fatalists than the merest Christians. Mere Chris- 
tians would have helped themselves a little, doubt- 
less, and so would the Muslim, if they had known 
how to do it. Their resignation was not religion, 
but stupidity. The golden-sleeved Commander was 
evidently averse to a sloping deck, at least to slopes 
of so aggravated an angle ; and the crew were 
clearly wondering how infidels could rate their 
lives so justly as the Howadji did, in suggesting 
the mainsail at the very feet of the inexorable Gebel 
Tookh. 

Twice the squall struck the Ibis, and twice, paus- 
ing and shivering a moment, she stretched her 
wings again, and fled foamingly mad before it. 
Then she rounded the point, and, passing a country 
boat fully laden with men and produce, lying to 
under a bank, drove on to Girgeh. The baffled 
gale retreated to its mountain cavern to lie in awful 
ambush for Nero, and the blue pennant, whom we 
had passed already — yes, Osiris ! possibly to hunt 
the hunting Messieurs, nor to let them off for their 
legs alone. Then the Ibis furled neatly and hand- 
somely her wild wings before the minarets of Girgeh. 



* 



X. 

VERDE GIOYANE AND FELLOW-MARINEES. 

As we drift along, and the day paints its placid 
picture upon the eye, each sail shining i^i the dis- 
tance, and fading beyond the palm-groved points, 
recalls our fellow-mariners. You may embark on 
the same day that others embark from Boulak, and 
be two months upon the Nile, yet never meet, or 
only so rarely as to make parting sorrow. Yet as 
the charm of new impressions and thoughts is 
doubled by reflection in a friend's mind, you scan 
very curiously, upon your arrival in Cairo, the 
groups who are to form the society of the River. 
Usually, however, you will come with one friend, 
nor care much for many others. Once in Egypt 
you are so far removed from things familiar, that 
you wish to unsphere yourself entirely, to lose all 
trace of your own nationality, and to separate your- 
self from the past. In those dim, beautiful bazaars 
of Cairo, where all the wares of the most inventive 
imagination should be, you dream vaguely that 



72 NILE NOTES. 

some austere astrologer sitting cross-legged before 
his odorous crucibles, and breathing contemplative 
smoke, must needs be Icarian progeny, and can 
whisper the secret of those wings of the morning 
which shall bear you to the uttermost parts of the 
earth. 

All things seem possible when you actually see 
the pyramids and palms. Persia is then very prob- 
able, — and you are willing to propose the Ganges 
as your next river voyage. Yet the first Cairo eve, 
as the Howadji sat in Sliepherd's dining-room, that 
long, large hall opening upon the balcony, of whose 
stability some are suspicious, which overhangs the 
Uzbeekeeyah, massively foliaged with December- 
blooming acacias, — there as they sat tranquilly 
smoking chibouques, detecting an unwonted tenden- 
cy in the legs to curl, and cross themselves upon 
the cushions, and inwardly congratulating them- 
selves that at length they were oriental, a brisk 
little English officer suddenly spoke, and said — 
" When I was in the East." Heavens ! the How- 
adji legs uncurled immediately, and the words 
shoved them deep into the West — " When I was in 
the East !" 

"And where were you then, Major Pendennis?" 
For it was plain to see that it was Major Penden- 
nis — wearied of Pall Mall — and recruiting from the 



VERDE GIO VANE. 73 

fatigues of Indian service in a little western recrea- 
tion in Syria and Egypt. 

" Ah ! my dear sir, it was when I was in Persia," 
— and the worthy Major waxed w^arm in his tales 
of Persian life, especially of that horsemanship 
whereof Apollo seems to have been the God — so 
graceful, so poetic, so perfect, is its character. But 
no listener listened so lovingly and long as Verde 
Giovane. I thought him a very young grandson of 
my elderly friend Bull. Yerde was joyous and gay. 
He had already been to the Pyramids, and had slept 
in a tomb, and had his pockets picked as he wan- 
dered through their disagreeable darkness. He had 
come freshly and fast from England to see the 
world, omitting Paris and Western Europe on his 
way, — as he embarked at Southampton for Alexan- 
dria. Being in Cairo, he felt himself a traveller. 
Sternhold and Hopkins were his laureates ; for, per- 
petually, on all kinds of wings of mighty winds, he 
came flying all abroad. He lost a great deal of 
money at billiards to "jolly" fellows whom he af- 
terward regaled with cold punch and choice cigars. 
He wrangled wildly with a dragoman of very im- 
perfect English powers, and packed his tea for the 
voyage in brown paper parcels. He was perpetu- 
ally on the point of leaving. At breakfast, he 

would take aloud leave of the " joUv" fellows, and 
4 



74 NILE NOTES. 

if there were ladies in the room, he slung his gun 
in a very abandoned manner over his shoulder, and 
while he adjusted his shot-pouch with careless he- 
roism, as if the enemy were in ambush on the 
stairs, — as who should say, "I'll do their business 
easily enough," he would remark with a meaning 
smile, that he should stop a day or two at Esne, 
probably, and then go off humming a song from the 
Favorita, — or an air whose words were well known 
to the jolly fellows, but would scarcely bear female 
criticism. 

After this departure, he had a pleasant way of 
reappearing at the dinner-table, for the pale ale was 
not yet aboard, or the cook was ill, or there had 
been another explosion with the dragoman. Verde 
Giovane found the Cairene evenings " slow." It 
was astonishing how much execution he accomplish- 
ed with those words of very moderate calibre, 
"slow," "jolly," and "stunning." The universe 
arranged itself in Verde Giovane's mind under those 
three heads. Presently it was easy to predicate his 
criticisms in any department. He had lofty views 
of travel. Verde Giovane had come forth to see the 
world, and vainly might the world seek to be un- 
seen. He wished to push on to Sennaar and Ethio- 
pia. It was very slow to go only to the cataracts. 
Ordinary travel, and places already beheld of men, 



VERDE GIOVANE. 75 

were not for Verde. But if there were any Chinese 
wall to be scaled, or the English standard were to 
be planted upon any vague and awful Himalayan 
height, or a new oasis were to be revealed in the 
desert of Sahara, here was the heaven-appointed 
Verde Giovane, only awaiting his pale ale, and de- 
termined to dally a little at Esne. After subduing 
the East by travel, he proposed to enter the Cauca- 
sian Mountains, and serve as a Russian officer. These 
things were pleasant to hear, as to behold at Christ- 
mas those terrible beheadings of giants by Tom 
Thumb; for you enjoyed a sweet sense of security 
and a consciousness that no harm was done. They 
were wild Arabian romances, attributable to the in- 
spiration of the climate in the city he found so slow. 
The Cairenes were listening elsewhere to their 
poets, Verde Giovane was ours ; and we knew very 
well that he would go quietly up to the first cataract, 
and then returning to Alexandria, would steam to 
Jaffa, and thence donkey placidly to Jerusalem, 
moaning in his sleep of Cheapside and St. Paul's. 

His chum. Gunning, was a brisk little barrister, 
dried up in the Temple like a small tart sapson. 
In the course of acquaintance with him you stumbled 
surprised upon the remains of geniality and gentle 
culture, as you would upon Greek relics in Green- 
land. He was a victim of the Circe, Law, but not 



76 NILE NOTES. 

entirely unhumanized. Like the young king, he 
was half marble, but not all stony. Gunning's 
laugh was very ludicrous. It had no fun in it — no 
more sweetness than a crow's caw, and it sprang 
upon you suddenly and startling, like the breaking 
down of a cart overloaded with stones. He was 
very ugly and moody, and walked apart muttering 
to himself, and nervously grinning ghastly grins, so 
that Gunning was suspected of insanity — a sus- 
picion that became certainty when he fringed his 
mouth with stiff black bristles, and went up the 
Nile with Verde Giovane. 

For the little Verde did say a final farewell at 
last, and left the dining-room gaily and gallantly, 
as a stage bandit disappears down pasteboard rocks 
to desperate encounters with mugs of beer in the 
green-room. 



XI. 

VERDE PIU GIOVANE. 

I KNEW at Cairo, too, another youth, whom I was 
sure was a Verde. I thought him brother of the 
good Verde Giovane, but he denied all relationship, 
although I am convinced he was at least first cousin. 
Possibly you know not the modesty of the Indian 
Englishman. 

It was in the same dining-room, and the youth 
was expatiating to Major Pendennis upon his braving 
the desert dangers from Suez, of his exploits of 
heroism and endurance upon the Nile voyage, which 
he had already made, and was again projecting, and 
generally of things innumerable, and to lesser men 
insuperable, undergone or overborne. 

*' And up the Nile, too," said he, " I carried no 
bed, and slept upon the bench ; over the desert I go 
with one camel, and she carries every thing. Why 
will men travel with such retinues, caring for their 
abominable comfort ;" and the young gentleman 
ordered his nargileh. 



78 NILE NOTES. 

"But, my dear sir," said Major Pendennis, "why- 
rough it here upon the Nile ? It is harder to do 
that than to go comfortably. You might as well 
rough it through England. The bottle, if you 
please." 

"Why, Major," returned the youth, smiling in 
his turn, and crowding his body into his chair, so 
that the back of his head rested upon the chair- 
back, " it is well enough for some of you ; but we 
poor East India subalterns ! — Besides, you know, 
Major, discipline — not only military, which is in our 
way, but moral. For what says the American poet, 
who, I doubt not, lives ascetically in some retired 
cave : 

' Know how sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong.' " 

So saying, the young man clapped his hands, and 
a Hindoo boy in his native costume appeared. The 
youth addressed some words to him in an unknown 
tongue, which produced no effect until he pointed 
to his nargileh, and rising at the same time, the 
slave removed the nargileh a few steps toward his 
master, who curled up his feet and prepared to suf- 
fer and be stronsr in the sofa corner. 

By this time Galignani and the French news 
were entirely uninteresting to me. Who this was ? 
— this personage who modestly styled himself "we 



VEKDE PIU GIOVANE. 79 

poor East India subalterns," and summoned Hin- 
doo servants to turn round his nargileb, and hob- 
nobbed with Major Pendennises, and who suffered 
and was strong in such pleasant ways. 

Major Pendennis shoving his chair a little back, 
said, " When I was in the East," and compared ex- 
perience of travel with his young friend. 

The Major, truly a gallant gentleman, related the 
Roman hardihood of those British officers who ad- 
vance into the heart of Hindostan, and penetrate to 
Persia, reclining upon cushioned camels, resting 
upon piles of Persian carpets on elevated frame- 
works under silken tents, surrounded by a shining 
society of servants and retinue, so that, to every 
effective officer, every roaring and rampant British 
lion of this calibre, go eight or ten attendant su- 
pernumeraries, who wait upon his nargileh, coffee, 
sherbet, and pale ale, and care generally for his suf- 
fering and strength. 

In the dim dining-room, I listened wonderingly 
to these wild tales of military hardship sung by a 
soldier-poet. I fancied, as the period swelled, that 
I heard the hoary historian reciting the sparkling 
romance of Xerxes' marches and the shining advance 
of Persian arms. But no sooner had the Major 
ceased his story, than " we poor East India subal- 
terns" " took up the wondrous tale." 



80 NILE NOTES. 

The Howadji weltered then in a whirlpool of 
brilliant confusion. Names of fair fame bubbled 
up from the level tone of his speech, like sudden 
sun-seeking fountains from bloom-matted plains. I 
heard Bagdad, Damascus, Sinai, and farther and 
fairer, the Arabian Gulf, pearls, and Circassians. I 
knew that he was telling of where he had been, or 
might have been, or wished to have been. The 
rich romance reeled on. The fragrant smoke curled 
in heavier clouds. I felt that my experience was 
like a babe unborn beside that of this mighty man, 
who knew several things, and had brushed the 
bloom from life with the idle sweep of his wings, 
and now tossed us the dull rind for our admiring. 

The silence of the room was only more rapt by 
his voice meshing about our attention its folds of 
fascination, when the good Verde Giovane, who sat 
next to me, and who, I fear, was not lending that 
length of admiring ears, of which he was certainly 
capable, suddenly asked the subaltern, *' Pray, is the 
tobacco you are smoking — " 

" Pardon me, sir, this is not tobacco. I am smok- 
ing coffee leaves." 

Unhappy Giovane ! The subaltern looked upon 
him with eyes that said, " Unworthy fellow-coun- 
tryman, do you imagine that men live a brace of 
years in the H. E. I. C.'s service and then smoke 



VERDE PI UGIOVANE. 81 

tobacco — talk of Arabia and pearls, and yet smoke 
tobacco — of Circassians and Lahore, and still smoke 
tobacco ?" 

In the amazement of that interruption the last 
whiff of the smoke of coffee-leaves curled scornfully 
away over Giovane's diminished head. Hands were 
clapped again, servants appeared and replaced with 
a chibouque the Persian nargileh of the disciplina- 
rian. 

The mere American Howadji was fascinated with 
the extent and variety of knowledge acquired by 
the " poor subalterns." " Never," mused he, in a 
certain querulousness of spirit, " never, until we, 
too, have an H. E. I. C, can we hope to rear such 
youths as this. Happy country, imperial England, 
that at home fosters young men like my excellent 
Verde Giovane, and in distant India, a race of 
Verdes, piu Giovane. 

The " poor subaltern" gradually melted, and at 
length even smiled benignly upon Giovane, as he 
suddenly clapped his hands again and summoned 
the Hindoo. " Mr. Verde, do you smoke paper ?" 

*' No—why — yes, I should be very happy," re- 
plied the appalled Giovane, who told me later, that 
he considered the subaltern a right "jolly" fellow, 
with a " stunning" way with him, in which latter 

half of praise I was entirely of Verde's opinion. 
4* 



82 NILE NOTES. 

Turning to his servant, the youth said something 
probably in refined Hindostanee, which the boy, 
speaking only a patois, of course could not under- 
stand. But " make a cigarette," in pure English, 
resembled his patois to that degree that he under- 
stood at once, and rolled the cigarette, which the 
youth handed to Giovane with an air of majestic 
forgiveness, and then taking a candle, he left the 
room, wishing us good night, as who should say, 
"My Lords, farewell;" leaving the party still as 
champagne when the gas has bubbled briskly away. 

x4.nd yet, with that unmistakable family likeness, 
he could deny that he was of the great Verde family ! 

The mental shock of subsiding into my own 
thoughts, at once, after that evening would have 
been too much. I therefore sought to let myself 
down by delicate degrees, and, thinking that I had 
seized a volume of Hafiz, I stepped upon the bal- 
cony to read, by moonlight, songs of love and wine. 
But I found that I had a natural history by an un- 
known Arabian author. My finger was on this pas- 
sage — 

" This is a species of the John Bull, w^hich now, 
for the first time, falls under the author's observa- 
tion. Great is Allah and Mohammed his prophet for 
these new revelations. I am told," he continues, 
" that it is not uncommon in the mother country. 



VERDE PIU GIOVANE. 83 

It is there gregarious in its habits, and found in 
flocks in the thickets of Regent and Oxford streets, 
in the paddock of Pall Mall, and usually in any 
large herd of Bulls. 

" Its horns are enormous and threatening, but 
very flexible and harmless. Its ears and tail are 
of uncommon length, but adroitly concealed, and it 
comes to luxuriant perfection in the southern parts 
of India, and, in fact, wherever the old herds obtain 
a footing. 

"It is very frisky and amusing, and delights to 
run at the spectator with its great horns branching. 
If he be panic-stricken and fly, the Bull pursues 
him roaring like a mighty lion, and with such ener- 
gy, that the more ingenious naturalists suppose, 
that for the moment, the animal really fancies his 
horns to be hard, and pointed, and serviceable. If, 
however, the spectator turns, and boldly takes the 
animal by the horns, they will bend quite down — in 
fact, with a little squeezing, will entirel}^ disappear, 
and the meek-faced Bull will roar you as gently 
as any sucking dove." 

Nor wonder at such figures in our Nile picture, for 
here are contrasts more profound, lights lighter, and 
shadows more shaded, than in our better balanced 
West. Believe that you more truly feel the pictur- 
esqueness of that turban, and that garb moving 



84 NILE NOTES. 

along the shore, because Verde Giovane's "wide- 
awake" and checked shooting-jacket are hard before 
us. We overhauled them one afternoon, and while 
Verde Giovane stood in a flat cap, and his hands in 
the shooting-jacket's pocket, and told us that Nero 
was just ahead and in sight that morning. Gunning 
suddenly sprang upon deck, blew off his two bar- 
rels, laughed hysterically, and glaring full at us, 
we saw — Dolland ! that he had succumbed to 
blue spectacles. 



XII. 

ASYOOT. 

Sherbet of roses in a fountained kiosk of Da- 
mascus can alone be more utterly oriental to the 
imagination and sense than the first interior view of 
many-minareted Asyoot. 

Breathe here, and reflect that Asyoot is a squalid 
mud town, and perceiving that, and the other too, 
as you must needs do when you are there, believe in 
magic for evermore. 

Under Aboofeyda, from the dragoman of a daha- 
bieh whose Howadji were in the small boat shoot- 
ing ducks and waking all the wild echoes of the 
cliifs, we had heard of Nero just ahead, again, and 
had left Verde and Gunning far behind. As the Ibis 
flew on with favoring gales, the river became more 
and more winding, and the minarets of Asyoot were 
near across the land, long before the river reached 
the port of the town. Rounding one of the points, 
we descried two boats ahead, and we could at 
length distinguish the Italian tricolor of Nero. His 



86 NILE NOTES. 

companion bore an immense blue pennant, that 
floated in great bellying folds upon the wind, like a 
huge serpent. Suddenly we came directly into the 
wind and threw the men ashore to track along a 
fine bank of acacias. This passed, we saw the blue 
pennant standing across into the reach of the stream 
that stretches straight to Asyoot, and a few mo- 
ments after, Nero emerged and strained canvass 
after, and we, piling in our men as soon as possible, 
drew round, with the wind upon our quarter, in hot 
pursuit. The Ibis had not time to win a victory so 
sure; for Nero's "Kid" frisked by the proud pen- 
nant, and mooring first to the bank, was quiet as 
the dozing donkeys on the shore by the time that the 
Ibis touched the bank, and the Howadji landed 
under a salute of one gun from the Kid. Salutatory 
Nero had an arsenal on board ; but in that hour only 
one gun would go. 

We were yet a mile or two from the town, which 
lies inland, and we took our way across the fields in 
which a few of the faithful stared sedately upon the 
green veiled Nera, by whose side rode the Pacha, — 
Nero and I, and a running rabble of many colors, 
bringing up the rear. Herons floated snowily about 
the green, woodpeckers, sparrows, and birds of sun- 
set plumage, darted and fluttered over the fields, 
deluged with the sunlight; and, under a gate of 



ASYOOT. 87 

Saracenic arch, heralded by the golden-sleeved 
Commander, we entered a cool, shady square. 

It was the court of the Pacha's palace, the chief 
entrance of the town. A low stone bench ran along 
the base of the glaring white walls of the houses 
upon the square, whose windows were screened by 
blinds, as dark as the walls were white, and sitting, 
and lounging upon this bench, groups of figures, — 
smoking, sipping coffee, arrayed in gorgeous stuffs — 
for this in sober sadness was the court circle, with 
the long beards flowing from the impassible dark 
faces, — gazed with serious sweet Arabian eyes upon 
the Howadji. The ground was a hard, smooth, clay 
floor, and an arcade of acacias on either hand, walled 
and arched with grateful, cool green, the picturesque 
repose of the scene. 

This was a small square, and faded upon the eye, 
forever daguerreotyped on the memor}^, as we passed 
over a bridge by a shekh's tomb, a mound of white 
plaster, w^hile under an arch between glaring white 
walls, stood a veiled woman with a high water-jar 
upon her head. 

Threading the town, v/hich is built entirely of the 
dark mud brick, we emerged upon the plain between 
the houses and the mountains. Before us a funeral 
procession was moving to the tombs, and the shrill, 
melancholy cry of the wallers rang fitfully upon the 



88 NILE NOTES. 

low gusts that wailed more grievously, and for a 
sadder sorrow. We could not overtake the proces- 
sion, but saw it disappear among the white domes 
of the cemetery, as we began to climb the hills to 
the caves — temples, I might say ; for their tombs are 
temples who reverence the dead, and these were built 
with a temple grandeur by a race which honored 
the forms that life had honored, beyond the tradition 
or conception of any other people. Great truths, 
like the gods, have no country or age, and over 
these ancient Egyptian portals might have been 
carved the saying of the modern German Novalis : 
The body of man is the temple of God. 

These tombs of Stabl Antar are chambers quar- 
ried in the rock. They are not vast, only, but 
stately. The elevation of the entrances, and the pro- 
portion of the chambers, are full of character. The 
entrance is not merely a way to get in, but attracts 
the eye by its grand solemn loftiness. It harmo- 
nizes in sentiment with the figures sculptured upon 
its side — those mysterious high-shouldered profile 
figures, whose secret is hidden forever. The caves 
do not reach far into the hills, and there are square 
pits at intervals upon the ground which the donkey- 
boys called baths. Haply without authority. 

About these caves are many bones, and a few 
mummied human members, whereover many Nile 



ASYOOT. S9 

poets wax melodious. Eliot Warburton speaks of 
" the plump arms of infancy," — poet Eliot, were 
they plump when you saw them ? When your pen 
slipped smoothly into that sentence, were you not 
dreaming of those Egyptian days, when, doubtless, 
babes were plump, and mothers fair, or had you 
clearly in your eye that shrunken, blackened, shape- 
less and unhuman mummied hand or foot, that your 
one-eyed donkey-boy held in his hand ? We must, 
after all, confess, O Eliot, that three-thousand-yeared 
mummied maidens and Verde Giovanes of yesterday 
are not poetic, though upon the Nile. 

There is a broad platform in front of the caves, 
overlooking the valley of the river, the few white 
tombs of shekhs, which dot the solitary places and 
the town below with palms and acacias, and the 
slim minarets spiring silverly and strangely from the 
undefined dark mass of mud houses. The Arabian 
mountain line, stretched straightly and sadly into 
the southern horizon. Was it the day or the place, 
was it some antique ghost haunting its old haunts 
mournfully, and charming iis with its presence, that 
made that broad, luxuriant landscape, with its end- 
less dower of spots and objects of fame, so sad? 

Yet, if ghost it were, Verde Giovane laid him 
— Verde and Gunning mounting breathlessly on 
donkeys, with handkerchiefs tied around their wide- 



[)0 NILE NOTES. 

awakes, or slouch-hats, to " do" the Stabl Antar. 
The donkey-boys chewed sugar-cane as they clucked 
and chirruped us back to the city; we, galloping 
riotously over the plain, but gliding slowly through 
the streets, wondering if every woman were not the 
Princess of China — though which Howadji was the 
Prince of Persia? The city was simply an illumi- 
nated chapter of the Arabian Nights. The people 
were doing just what they do there, sitting in the 
same shops in the same dresses, the same inscrip- 
tions from the Koran straggled about the walls, 
blurred, defaced, and dim — too much, I fear me, as 
the morals of the Koran straggle about Mohamme- 
dan brains. There were water-carriers, and fruit- 
carriers, and bread-carriers. The dark turbaned 
Copt, the wily-eyed Turk, the sad-eyed swarthy 
Egyptian, half curious, half careless, smoking, sip- 
ping, quarreling, cross-legged, parboiled, and indo- 
lent. 

Through the narrow bazaar pressed demure don- 
keys, with panniers pregnant of weeds and waste. 
Camels, with calm, contemptuous eyes, swung their 
heads over all others, and trod on no naked feet in 
the throng with their own huge, soft, spongy 
pedals. Little children straddled the maternal 
right shoulder, and rode triumphant over turbaned 
men, unabashed by the impending camels. The 



ASYOOT. 91 

throng was immense ; but no sense of rush or hurry 
heated the mind. There was a constant murmur, 
but that and the cool shade were only the sound of 
the atmosphere of the Arabian Nights. 

We stepped into smaller side passages — veins 
leading to the great artery of the bazaar — where, 
through some open door, the still, bright court of a 
mosque was revealed, like the calm face of a virgin. 
In one niche stood a child so handsome, with eyes 
that were not devoured by flies, but round and 
softly lashed, and very deep and tender, that I began 
to feel that, after all, I might be the Prince of 
Persia. 

Yet it was strange how the scene separated itself 
from the actors. They were essential as picturesque 
objects, but slovenly, ugly, and repugnant, as fellow- 
men. The East, like the natures which it symbol- 
izes, is a splendid excess. There is no measure, no 
moderation in its richness and beauty, or in its 
squalor and woe. The crocodile looks out from a 
lotus bank, the snake coils in the corner of the 
hareem, and a servant, who seems slave from the 
soul out, conducts you to the most dream-like beau- 
tiful of women. So, as we sauntered through the 
bazaar of Asyoot, we passed the figures of men with 
no trace of manliness, but with faces full of inanity 
and vice. The impression would be profoundly sad 



92 NILE NOTES. 

if you could feel their humanity. But they are so 
much below the lowest level known to a Western, 
that they disappear from sympathy. Then suddenly 
passes a face like a vision, and your eyes turn, fasci- 
nated, to follow, as if they had seen the realized 
perfection of an ideal beauty. 

Oriental masculine beauty is so mild and feminine, 
that the men are like statues of men seen in the 
most mellowing and azure atmosphere. The forms 
of the face have a surprising grace and perfection. 
They are not statues of heroes and gods so seen, 
but the budding beauty of Antinous, when he, too, 
had been in this soft climate ; the ripening, round- 
ing lip, the arched brow, the heavy, drooping lid, 
the crushed, closed eye, like a bud bursting with 
voluptuous beauty, the low, broad brow ; these I 
remember at Asyoot, and remember forever. There 
is nothing Western comparable with this. Some 
Spanish and Italian faces suggest it. But they lack 
the mellow harmony of hue and form. Western 
beauty is intellectual, but intellect, has no share in 
this oriental charm. It is in kind, the same superi- 
ority which the glowing voluptuousness of color of 
the Venetian school of painting, in which form is 
secondary and subdued, has over the serenity of the 
Roman and Tuscan schools, which worship form. 
And, according as a man is born with an Eastern or 



ASYOOT. 93 

Western nature, will he prefer this or that beauty. 
The truest thing in Byron was his great oriental ten- 
dency. Men of profoundly passionate natures, in- 
stinctively crave the East, or must surround them- 
selves with an eastern atmosphere and influence. 
The face of every handsome oriental is the face of a 
passionate poet in repose ; and if you have in yourself 
the key of the mystery, you will perceive poems 
there that never have been, and never can be, 
written, more than the sad sweet strength of the 
Sphinx's beauty can be described. Yet, young 
yearner for the East, do not fancy that you shall 
always w^alk glorious among silent poets when you 
touch that land, so golden-shored and houri-peopled 
in our cold imaginations. The handsome of whom 
I speak are rare as poets are. 

Not only will you find the faces revolting, but 
the body is maimed to a frightful degree. Every 
second man lacks an eye or forefinger, or he is en- 
tirely blind. The Egyptians maimed themselves to 
escape Mehemet All's conscription. Seyd, the first 
officer of the Ibis, as we have seen, had put out 
his right eye, that he might have no aim, others 
chop off their forefinger, that they may not pull a 
trigger. 

But more than all disgusting is the sight of flies 
feeding upon the acrid humors that exude from dis- 



94 NILE NOTES. 

eased eyes ; a misery that multiplies itself. The na- 
tives believe that to wash this av^ay v^ill produce 
blindness. So it remains, and nine-tenths of the 
young children whom you pass, are covered, like car- 
rion, with pertinacious flies, so that your own eyes 
water, though the children seem not to heed it. Thus 
accustomed to that point and that food, the fly makes 
directly for the eye upon every new face that he 
explores, not without vivid visions to the proprietor, 
of imported virus, borne by these loathsome bees 
of disease. 

We tasted sweets at a Turkish greybeard's — a 
fire-worshipper, I doubt not, from the intense twink- 
ling redness of his mole eyes ; then through the 
slave market — empty, for the caravan from Darfour 
was not yet arrived ; then went on to the bath and 
were happy. 

Yet, while we lie turbaned and luxurious upon 
these cushions of the bagnio, inhaling the pleasant 
tobacco of these lands, fancy for a moment our sen- 
sations, when, in the otiose parboiled state, we 
raised vague eyes through the reeking warm mist 
of the sudarium, and beheld Verde Giovane, gazing 
semi-scornfully through the door ! To the otiose 
parboiled, however, succeeds the saponaceous state, 
in which all merely human emotion slips smoothly 
away. 



A S Y O T , 95 

The crew returned at midnight to the Ibis, and 
tumbled their newly-baked bread upon the deck 
over our heads, with a confused shouting and scram- 
ble, in the midst of which I heard the gurgling- 
water, and knew that the famed Lycopolis of old 
Greece (why "upstart Greeks," poet Harriet?) was 
now set away as a choice bit of memory, which no 
beautiful Damascus, nor storied Cairo, could dis- 
place, although they might surpass. 

But while the Ibis spreads her wings southward 
under the stars, let us recall and believe the fair 
tradition that makes many-minareted Asyoot the 
refuge of Mary and her child, during the reign of 
Herod. So is each lovely landscape adorned with 
tales so fair, that the v^hole land is like a soiemn- 
browed Isis radiantly jeweled. 



/f 



XIII. 

THE SUN. 

The sun is the secret of the East. There seems 
to be no light elsewhere. Italy simply preludes 
the Orient. Sorrento is near the secret. Sicily is 
like its hand stretched forth over the sea. Their 
sunsets and dreamy days are delicious. Yoa may 
well read Hafiz in the odorous orange darkness of 
Sorrento, and believe that the lustrous leaves lan- 
guidly moving over you are palms yielding to the 
wooing of Arabian winds. The song of the Syrens, 
heard by you at evening, from these rocks, as you 
linger along the shore, is the same that Ulysses 
heard, seductive, sweet, the same that Hadrian must 
have leaned to hear, as he swept, silken-sailed, east- 
ward, as if he had not more than possible eastern 
conquest in his young Antinous ! 

But the secret sweetness of that song is to you 
what it was to Ulysses. Son of the East, it sang to 
him his native language, and he longed to remain. 
Son of the West, tarry not thou for that sweet sing- 



THE SUN. 97 

ing, but push bravely on and land where the song is 
realized. 

The East is a voluptuous reverie of nature. Its 
Egyptian days are perfect. You breathe the sun- 
light. You feel it warm in your lungs and heart. 
The whole system absorbs sunshine, and all your 
views of life become warmly and richly voluptuous. 
Your day-dreams rise, splendid with sun-sparkling 
aerial architecture. Stories are told, songs are sung, 
in your mind, and the scenery of each, and the per- 
sons, are such as is Damascus, seen at morning from 
the Salaheeyah, or Saladin, heroic and graceful, in 
the rosy light of chivalric tradition. 

The Egyptian sun does not glare, it shines. The 
light has a creamy quality, soft and mellow, as dis- 
tinguished from the intense whiteness of our Ameri- 
can light. The forms of our landscape stand sharp 
and severe in the atmosphere, like frost-work. But 
the Eastern outlines are smoothed and softened. 
The sun is the mediator, and blends beautifully the 
separate beauties of the landscape. It melts the 
sterner stuff of your nature. The intellect is 
thawed and mellowed. Emotions take the place 
of thought. Sense rises into the sphere of soul. It 
becomes so exquisite and refined, that the old land- 
marks in the moral world begin to totter and dance. 

They remain nowhere, they have no permanent 
5 



98 NILE NOTES. 

place. Delight and satisfaction, which are not sen- 
sual, but sensuous, become the law of your being ; 
conscience, lulled all the way from Sicily in the soft 
rocking lap of the Mediterranean, falls quite asleep 
at Cairo, and you take your chance with the other 
flowers. The thoughts that try to come, masque 
no more as austere and sad-browed men, but pass as 
large-eyed, dusky maidens, now, with fair folding 
arms that fascinate you to their embrace. Even old 
thoughts throng to you in this glowing guise. The 
Howadji feels, once more, how the Nile flows behind 
history, and he glides gently into the rear of all 
modern developments, and stands in the pure pre- 
sence of primitive feeling — perceives the naturalness 
of the world's first worship, and is an antique Ara- 
bian, a devotee of the sun, "as he sails, as he sails." 

For sun-worship is an instinct of the earliest 
races. The sun and stars are the first great friends 
of man. By the one he directs his movements, by 
the light of the other he gathers the fruit its warmth 
has ripened. Gratitude is natural to the youth, and 
he adores where he loves — and of the God of the 
last and wisest faith, the sun is still the symbol. 

This sun shines again in the brilliance of the col- 
ors the Easterns love. The sculptures upon the old 
tombs and temples are of the most positive colors — 
red, blue, yellow, green and black, were the colors 



THE SUN. 99 

of the old Egyptians — and still the instinct is the 
same in their costume. The poetic Hovvadji would 
fancy they had studied the beauty of rainbows 
against dark clouds. For golden and gay are the 
turbans wreathed around their dusky brows and 
figures — the very people of poetry, of which Titian 
and Paul divinely dreamed, but could never paint, 
sit forever in crimson turbans — yellow, blue, and 
white robes with red slippers crossed under them, 
languidly breathing smoke over Abana and Pharpar, 
rivers of Damascus. And the buildings in which 
they sit, the walls of baths, and cafes, and mosques, 
are painted in the same gorgeous taste, with broad 
bars of red, and blue, and white. Over all this bril- 
liance streams the intense sunshine, and completes 
what itself suggested. So warm, so glowing, and 
rich, is the universal light and atmosphere, that any 
thing less than this in architecture, would be unnat- 
ural. Strange and imperfect as it is, you feel the 
heart of nature throbbing all through Eastern art 
Art there follows the plainest hints of nature in cos- 
tume and architecture now, as in the antique archi- 
tecture. The fault of oriental art springs from the 
very excess, which is the universal law of Eastern 
life. It is the apparent attempt to say more than is 
sayable. In the infinite and exquisite elaborations 
of Arabian architecture, there is the evident effort 



100 NILE NOTES. 

to realize all the subtle and strange whims of a luxu- 
riously-inspired imagination ; and hence results an 
art that lacks large features and character, like the 
work of a man who loves the details of his dreams. 

The child's faith, that the East lies near the rising 
sun, is absurd until you are there. Then you feel 
that it was his first-born, and inherits the elder share 
of his love and influence. Wherever your eye falls, 
it sees the sun and the sun's suggestion. Egypt 
lies hard against its heart. But the sun is like other 
fathers, and his eldest is spoiled. 

As you sweep, sun-tranced, up the river, the 
strongest, most distinct desire of being an artist, 
is born of silence and the sun. So saturated are 
you with light and color, that they would seem to 
flow unaided from the brush. But not so readily, 
im.portunate reader, from the pen. Words are 
worsted by the East. Chiaro ^scuro will not give it. 
A man must be very cunning to persuade his pen to 
reveal those secrets. But, if an artist, I would tarry 
and worship a while in the temples of Italy, then 
hurry across the sea into the presence of the power 
there adored. There I should find that Claude was 
truly a consecrated priest. For this silence and sun 
breathe beauty along his canvass. His pictures are 
more than Italian, more than the real sunset from 
the Pincio ; for they are the ideal Italy which bends 



THE SUN. 101 

over the Nile and fulfills the South. The cluster of 
boats with gay streamers at Luxor, and the tur- 
baned groups under the temple columns on the 
shore, do justify those sunset dreams of Claude Lor- 
raine, that stately architecture upon the sea. 

I was lost in a sun-dream one afternoon, wondering 
if, Saturn-like, the sun would not one day utterly 
consume his child, when I heard the Commander 
exclaim : " El Karnak !" much as Columbus might 
have heard " land'* from his mast-head. 

" There," said the Commander ; and I could 
scarcely believe such a confirmation of my dreams 
of palm architecture, as my eye followed the point- 
ing of his finger to a dim, distant point. 

" Those ?" said I. 

"Those," said he. 

I looked again with the glass and beheld, soli- 
tary and stately upon the distant shore, a company 
of most undoubted trees ! The Pacha was smiling 
at my side, and declaring that he saw some very fine 
palms. The Commander looked again, confessed 
his mistake, and in extenuation, I remarked that he 
was not golden-sleeved. And, after all, what was 
Ala-ed-deen, if Mr. Lane will spell Aladdin so, 
without his lamp ? 

A few moments after, a small boat drew up to us, 
and an Emerald Howadji stepped on board. He 



102 NILE NOTES. 

had left Thebes at two o'clock, which sounded 
strangely to me when he said it ; for I fancied 
Thebes already to have done with time and become 
the property of eternity. He cofFeed and smoked, 
and would leave a duck for dinner, gave us all the 
last news from Thebes, then shook hands and went 
over the side of the Ibis, and out of our knowledge 
forever. 

Bo7i voyage^ Emerald Howadji ! and as he pulled 
rapidly away with the flowing stream toward his 
descending dahabieh, he fired at a heron that was 
streaming whitely over him across the stream — a 
parting salute, possibly, and the dead heron streamed 
whitely after hini upon the river. 



XIV. 

THEBES TRIUMPHANT. 

The warm vaporous evening gathered, and we 
moored in a broad, beautiful bay of the river. Far 
inland over the shore, the mountain lines, differently 
dark, waved away into the night. There were no 
masts upon the river but our own, and only one 
neighboring sakia moaned to the twilight. Groups 
of turbaned figures qrouched upon the bank. They 
looked as immovable forms of the landscape as the 
trees. Moulded of mystery, they sat like spirits of 
the dead-land personified. In the south, the Libyan 
mountains came to the river, vague and dim, steal- 
thily approaching like the shy monsters of the 
desert. The eye could not escape the fascination of 
those fading forms ; for those mountains overhung 
Thebes. 

Moored under the palm-trees in the gray begin- 
nings of the evening, by the sad mud huts and the 
squalid fellah, and within the spell of the sighing 
sakia, I remembered Thebes and felt an outcast of 
time. 

A world died before our history was born. The 



104 NILE NOTES. 

pomp and splendor had passed along — the sounds 
that were the words of a great life had swept for- 
ward into silence, and I lingered in the wake of 
splendor, like a drowning child behind a ship, feel- 
ing it fade away. I remembered the West, too, and 
its budding life — its future, an unrolled heaven of 
new constellations. But it was only a dream dizzy- 
ing the brain, as a man, thirst-stricken, dreams of 
flowing waters. Here, for the first time, probably 
the only time of a life, I felt the grandeur and re- 
ality of the past preponderate over all time. It 
was the success of Egypt in the East. A fading, 
visionary triumph, as of a dumb slave who wins for 
a single night the preference of her master. 

But in that mountain shadow sat Memnon. darling 
of the dawn, drawing reverence backward to the 
morning of time. I felt the presence of his land 
and age, sitting solemn, saddening but successful, in 
the hush of my mind, as he sat, marvellous, but 
melodious no longer, rapt in the twilight repose. It 
was not a permanent feeling. The ever young stars 
looked out, and smiled away antiquity as a vapor. 
They who have visions of the dead floating fair in their 
old beauty and power, do not see them so always, 
perhaps never again. They repair like all men to 
their tombs, and dream vaguely of the departed. 
But those tombs are temples to them forever after. 



XV. 

THE CROCODILE. 

" Where naked boys, bridling tame water snakes, 
Or charioteering ghastly alligators, 
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes 
Of those huge forms " 

Day and niglit the Ibis did not rest, except when 
the wind fell, and her wings fell with it. She pass 
ed Dendereh — -Thebes — Luxor. A light breeze 
wafted her along, and those sights of fame grew 
fair and faded, like pictures on the air. The up- 
ward Nile voyage is a Barmecide feast. You do not 
pause, except at Asyoot for the crew to bake bread, 
and at Esne, dear to Verde Giovane — so you enjoy 
the great fames and places by name only ; as Sha- 
cabac, the Barber's sixth brother, delighted in the 
sweet bread, and the chicken stuffed with pistachio, 
and the golden cups of wine, although they did not 
appear until he had rehearsed his emotions. So 
finally, you, having partaken the Barmecide feast of 
the ascent, and passed Memphis, Abydos, Dendereh, 
Edfoo, and Kalabsheh, clap your hands at Aboo 

Simbel, and returning, taste the reality of Egypt. 
5* 



106 NILE NOTES. 

But we were to stop at Esne, for another bread- 
baking for the crew. There was an unwonted dis- 
play of fine raiment as the afternoon waned — 
coarse hempen blankets gave place to blue cotton 
kaftans — the same that the female Bull insisted 
upon calling nightgowns. Under these, the white 
vest, with the row of close-set buttons, was not 
unhandsome. But when the ample turban went 
round the head, how great was that glory ! With 
horror I beheld Seyd contemplating his slippers, and 
thence knew that Esne was a place of especial im- 
portance. 

Strange is the magic of a turban. Eastern gar- 
ments are always graceful, and truly the turban is 
the crown of grace, and honored as the protector 
of the human head should be. There are fashions 
and colors in turbans. The Turkish is heavy and 
round — the Syrian broad and flat, roll outside roll 
of rich Cashmere. A special chair is consecrated 
to the repose of the turban — and losing the sub- 
stance in the form, when an irreverent donkey 
threw a shekh of dignity into the dirt, and among 
the camel legs of a bazaar, causing him to shed his 
turban in tumbling, the reverent crowd eagerly pur- 
sued the turban, and rescuing it, bore it with care 
in their hands, shouting, "lift up the crown of El 
Islam" — while the poor neglected shekh angrily 



THE CROCODILE. ^ 107 

cried from the dirt, " lift up the shekli of El Islam." 
The lords of the land, and the luxurious, wreathe 
around their heads Cashmere shawls of texture so 
delicate, that they may be drawn through a thin 
signet ring, yet they are as full and rich upon the 
head as the forms of sunset clouds whose brilliance 
they emulate. 

This day, before Esne, Abdallah, our Samsonian 
Abdallah, sat glorious in the sunset in an incredible 
turban. He was not used to wear one, content on 
ordinary days with a cap that had been white. At 
first, as if to break his head gently into the unac- 
customed luxury, I saw him sitting upon the boat- 
side very solemnly — his brows cinctured with what 
seemed to be a mighty length of dishclout. I fan- 
cied that having assisted at the washing of the 
dishes, he had wreathed his brows triumphantly 
with the clouts, as Indian warriors girdled them- 
selves with scalps. But presently stationing the 
weasen-faced crew's cook near the mainmast, with 
one end of a portentously long white robe of cotton, 
he posted himself with the other end by the fore- 
mast, and then gradually drew the boy toward him, 
as he turned his head like a crank, and so wound 
himself up with glory. Afterward I saw him mov- 
ing with solemn cautiousness, and with his hands 
ready — as if he were the merest trifle top-heavy. 



108 NILE NOTES. 

Fate paints what it will upon the canvass of memory, 
and I must forever see the great, gawky, dog-faith- 
ful, abused, Sarasonian Abdallah, sitting turbaned 
on the boatside in the sunset. 

" A crocodile," shouted the Commander. And 
the Howadji saw, for the first time, the pet monster 
of the Nile. 

He lay upon a sunny sand shore, at our right, a 
hideous, horrible monster — a scaled nightmare upon 
the day. He was at least twenty feet long ; but 
seeing the Ibis with fleet wings running, he slipped, 
slowly soughing, head foremost, and leisurely, into 
the river. 

It was the first blight upon the beauty of the 
Nile. The squalid people were at least picturesque, 
with their costume and water-jars on the shore. 
But this mole-eyed, dragon-tailed abomination, who 
is often seen by the same picturesque people, slug- 
gishly devouring a grandam, or child, on the inac- 
cessible opposite bank, was utterly loathsome. 
Yet he, too, had his romantic side, the scaly night- 
mare ! so exquisite and perfect are the compensa- 
tions of nature. For if, in the perpetual presence 
of forms and climate so beautiful, and the feeling 
of a life so intense as the Egyptian, there is the con- 
stant feeling that the shadow must be as deep as 
the sun is bright, and that weeds must foully flaunt 



THE CROCODILE. 109 

where flowers are fairest ; so, when the shadow 
sloped, and the weed was seen, they had their own 
suggestions of an opposite grace, and in this loath- 
some spawn of slime and mystic waters, it was 
plain to see the dragon of oriental romance. Had 
the Howadji followed this feeling, and penetrated 
to Buto, they might have seen Sinbad's valley. 
For there Herodotus saw the bones of winged 
snakes, as the Arabians called them. These, with- 
out doubt, were the bones of serpents, which, being 
seized by birds and borne aloft, seemed to the as- 
tonished people to be serpents flying, and were in- 
corporated into the Arabian romances as worthy 
wonders. 

The Pacha felt very like St. George, and longed 
to destroy the dragon; but having neither sword, 
spear, nor shield — only that trusty one-barrelled gun 
and no jolly-boat (I understood then why all our 
English friends have that boat), he was obliged to 
see the enemy slinking untouched into the stream, 
and relieve his mind by rehearsing to me the true 
method of ending dragons — opportunity and means 
volentihus. You do not see the crocodile without a 
sense of neighborhood to the old Egyptians ; for 
they are the only live relics of that dead time, and 
Ramses the Great saw them sprawled on the sunny 
sand as Howadji the Little sees them to-day. 



110 NILE NOTES. 

The crocodile was not universally honored. In 
Lower Egypt it was especially sacred, and it was 
buried with dead kings in the labyrinth — too sacred 
in death even for Herodotus to see — and, doubtless, 
quite as much to our advantage unseen by him ; for 
had he been admitted to the tombs, our reverent and 
reverend father would probably have *' preferred" 
to say nothing about them. 

In some regions, however, there were regular 
crocodile hunts, and the prey was eaten — a proceed- 
ing necessarily so disgusting to the devotees of the 
dragon, that they were obliged to declare war 
against the impious, and endeavor to inhibit abso- 
lutely the consumption of crocodile chops. They 
did not regard Dragon himself as a god, but as sa- 
cred to the god Savak, who was crocodile-headed, 
and a deified form of the sun. 

For, in the City of Crocodiles, founded gratefully 
by King Menas, whom a crocodile ferried over the 
lake Moenis upon his back, when the disloyal hunt- 
ing-hounds drove royalty into the water, was a 
crocodile so sacred, that it was kept separately in an 
especial lake, and suffered the touching of the 
priests with a probable view to touching them ef- 
fectually on some apt occasion. This was the croco- 
dile Sachus, says Sir Gardner, quoting Strabo, and 
Strabo's host, a man of mark — " one of our most 



THE CROCODILE. Ill 

distinguished citizens " in the City of Crocodiles — 
showed him and his friends the sacred curiosities, 
conducting them to the brink of the lake, on whose 
bank the animal was extended. While some of the 
priests opened its mouth, one put in the cake, and 
then the meat, after which the wine was poured in. 
The crocodile then dived and lounged to the other 
side of the lake for a similar lunch, offered by 
another stranger. It has no tongue, says Plutarch, 
speaking through Sir Gardner, and is therefore re- 
garded as an image of the Deity itself — '* the divine 
reason needing not speech, but going through still 
and silent paths, while it administers the world with 
justice." 

Who shall say that the Egyptians of old were 
not poets ? The ears of crocodiles were decked 
with ear-rings, and the fore feet with bracelets. 
They loved life too well, those elder brethren of 
ours, to suffer any refuse in their world. As with 
children, every thing was excellent and dear. If 
they hated, they hated with Johnsonian vigor ; and 
which of the Persian poets is it who says tiiat hate 
is only love inverted? Nor revile their animal 
worship, since they did not make all Dragons 
Gods ; but had always some sentiment of gratitude 
and reverence in the feeling which consecrated 
any animal. There were but four animals univer- 



112 NILE NOTES. 

sally sacred — the Ibis, Hawk, Cynocephalus, and 
Apis. 

Animal worship was only a more extended and 
less poetic Manicheism. Simple shepherds loved 
the stars and worshipped them. But shepherds lose 
their simplicity in towns, and their poetic worship 
goes out through prose to a machinery of forms. The 
distance from the Arabian worship of stars, to the 
mystic theology of Egypt, is no greater than from 
the Syrian simplicity of Jesus Christ to the dusky 
dogmas of Rome or Geneva. 

But what right have our pages to such names as 
Apis and Cynocephalus? The symmetry, not the 
significance, of hieroglyphs, is the shrine of our wor- 
ship. Feebly flies the Ibis, while the sun sets in a 
palm-grove, and long, sad vapors, dashed with dying 
light, drift and sweep formlessly through the blue, 
like Ossianic ghosts about a dying hero, w^ho wail by 
waving mournfully their flexile length. The reis 
beat the tarabuka. Abdallah blew the arghool, a 
reedy pipe, that I dreamed might draw Pan himself 
to the shore, or a nymph to float in a barque of 
moon-pearled lotus, across the calm. Aboo Seyd 
clinked the castanets, and the crew sang plaintively, 
clapping their hands. So we slid into Esne ; and 
as the Ibis nestled in the starlight to the shore, 
she shook poor little lithe Congo from her wing. 



THE CROCODILE. 113 

He fell with a cry and a heavy plunge upon the 
deck. The Howadji ran forward, but found no 
bones broken, only cuts and bumps, and bruises, 
which the Pacha knew how to treat. The crew 
shook doleful heads, and were sure that it was the 
work of the evil eye — the glance of envy cast upon 
the Ibis by a neighboring dragoman, when he heard 
that she was only eighteen days from Cairo. Congo 
was brought to the rear and laid upon a mattress 
and cushions. All that Pachalic skill could do was 
done ; and you, ye Indian youths and maidens, sages 
and hags of the West, sing to the sleeping Congo 
the Pacha's salvatory successes. 

I saw dimly a mud town, and on the bank under 
a plane-tree a little hut, yclept by the luxurious 
orientals, coffee-shop. Thither, being robed with 
due magnificence, the Commander proceeded, and 
bestowed the blessing of the golden-sleeved bour- 
nouse upon the undeserving Esnians. 



XVI. 

GETTING ASHORE. 

Great is travel ! Yesterday Memnon, to-day a 
crocodile, to-morrow dancing-girls — and all sunned 
by a January, whose burning brilliance shames our 
fairest June fervors. This comes of going down to 
the sea in ships, and doing business upon the great 
v^aters, and Sinbading round the world generally. 

Yet there are those who cultivate chimney cor- 
ners, and chuckle that a rolling-stone gathers no 
moss, who fillip their fingers at Memnon and the 
sources of the white Nile, who order warm slippers 
and declare that travelling is a fool's paradise. Yes. 
But, set in the azure air of that paradise stands the 
Parthenon, perfect as Homer. There are the 
Coliseum, the Forum, and the earth-quaking memo- 
ries of Rome. There Memnon sings and the Gondo- 
lier. There wave palms, and birds of unimagined 
plumage float. There are the mossy footsteps of 
history, the sweet sources of song, the sacred shrines 
of religion. 



GETTING ASHORE. 115 

Objective all, I know you will respond, fat friend 
of the warm slippers, and you will take down your 
Coleridge and find, 

" O lady, we receive but what we give, 
And in our life alone does nature live." 

Yes — again, but I mistrust your poet was 
abroad when he sans: those numbers. The melo- 
dious mystic could not reach the fool's paradise 
through the graceful G-recian gate, or the more con- 
genial Egyptian Pylon — so through rainbow airs, 
opium-pinioned, he overflew the walls, and awhile 
breathed other airs. The lines are only partially 
true. Elia, copying accounts in the India House, 
could not enjoy in the wood upon which he wrote, 
the charm of the tree which had " died into the 
desk." And though nature be the mirror of our 
moods — we can yet sometimes escape ourselves — as 
we can sometimes forget all laws. *' Go abroad 
and forget yourself," is good advice. The Prodigal 
was long and ruinously abroad before he came to 
himself. And poets celebrate the law unlimited, 
which circumstances constantly limit. You would 
fancy Thomson an early riser. Yet that placid poet, 
who rented the Castle of Indolence, and made it the 
House Beautiful, so that all who pass are fain to 
tarry, used to rise at noon, and, sauntering into the 



11(3 NILE NOTES. 

garden, eat fruit from the trees with his hands in 
his pockets, and then and there composed sonorous 
apostrophes to the rising sun. 

Travelling is a fool's paradise, to a fool. But to 
him, staying at home is the same thing. A fool is 
always in paradise. But into that delight, a wise 
man can no more penetrate than a soul into a stone. 
If you are a fool, friendly reader of the rolling- 
stone theoiy, you are in the paradise you dread, and 
hermetically closed in. The great gates clanged 
awfully behind you at your birth. But if you are 
wise, you can never by any chance get in. Allons, 
take your slippers, I shall take passage with the 
fool. 

All this we say, being somewhat sleepy, under the 
bank at Esne, on the verge of tumbling in. Good 
night ! But one word ! You, facetious friends in 
the hot slippers, what is our so stable-seeming, 
moss-amassing Earth doing ? Truly what Rip Van 
Winkle heard the aged men do among the moun- 
tains — rolling, rolling, rolling forever. 

O, friends of the Verde family, have you duly 
meditated these things ? 



/-^ 



XVII. 

FAIR FRAILTY. 

Frail are the fair of Esne. Yet the beauty of 
gossamer webs is not less beautiful, because it is not 
sheet-iron. Let the panoplied in principle pass 
Esne by. There dwell the gossamer-moraled Grha- 
wazee. A strange sect the Ghawazee — a race dedi- 
cate to pleasure. 

Somewhere in these remote regions lay the Lotus 
islands. Mild-eyed and melancholy were the forms 
that swam those calm waters to the loitering ves- 
sel, and wooed the mariners with their hearts' own 
longings soothlier sung — 

" Here are cool mosses deep, 
And through the moss the ivies creep, 
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, 
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep." 

To those enchanted islands and that summer sea, 
la aot this river of unknown source the winding 
avenue ? Through its silence, ever silenter — along 
^Aie peaceful waving of its palms — azure-arched and 
lotus-shored, leads it not backward to that dream ? 



118 NILE NOTES. 

Yes — the Howadji felt it. The day whispered it 
at noon. The palms at sunset waved it from the 
shore. The stars burning ever brighter with the 
deepening south, breathed it with their greater 
beauty all night long, " Mild-eyed, melancholy" 
were the men. But along the shores of this laby- 
rinth, which we so dreamily tread, are stations posted, 
to give exquisite earnest of our bourne. And here 
are maidens, not men, vowed to that fair forgetful- 
ness of yesterday and to-morrow which is the golden 
garland of to-day. 

These azure airs, soft and voluptuous, are they 
not those that blew beyond the domain of con- 
science — remote region of which Elia dreamed ? Is 
not the Bishop of that diocese unmitred here ? For 
the nonce I renounce my fealty, and air myself be- 
yond those limits : and when I return, if mortal may 
return from the Lotus islands, and from streams en- 
chanted, that good Bishop shall only lightly touch 
me with his crosier for the sake of bright Kushuk 
Arnem, and the still-eyed Xenobi. 

Did you sup at the Barmecide's in Bagdad, with 
Shacabac and myself, that Arabian night? Well, 
the Ghazeeyah Kushuk Arnem, a girl of Palestine, 
claims descent from him. Or did you assist at He- 
rodias's dancing before the royal Herod? Well, the 
Ghazeeyah Kushuk Arnem dances as Heiodias 



FAIR FRAILTY. 119 

danced. Or in those Pharaoh days, something 
musty now, did you frequent the court balls? 
Well, this is the same dancing ; and needless was it 
to have lived so long ago, for here you have the 
same delight in Kushuk Arnem. Or, seated under 
olive-trees, in stately Spain, with Don Quixote de 
la Mancha, were your eyes enamored of the Fan- 
dango ? That was well, but January is not June in 
Spain, and in Esne the Howadji saw Kushuk Arnem, 
and the gracious Ghazeeyah's dance was the model 
of the Spanish. 

For the Egyptian dancing-girls are of a distinct 
race, and of an unknown antiquity. The Egyptian 
gipsies, but not unanimously, claim the same Barme- 
cidian descent, and the Ghawazee, or dancing-girls, 
each one of which is termed Ghazeeyah, wear divers 
adornments, like those of the gipsies. They speak 
the language and profess the faith of the Egyptians 
— nay, like Hadji Hamed, the long cook of the Ibis, 
they perform the pilgrimage to Mecca for the solace 
of their own souls and bodies, <or those of some ac- 
companying ascetic. The race of Ghawazee is kept 
distinct. They marry among themselves, or some 
Ghazeeyah, weary of those sunny slopes, fuori Ic 
mure of conscience, wondering haply whither they 
do slope, retreats into the religious retirement of the 
hareem. When she has made a vow of repentance, 



120 NILE NOTES. 

the respectable husband is not considered disgraced 
by the connection. 

For the profession of the Ghawazee is dancing ed 
altri generi. They are migratory, moving from town 
to town with tents, slaves, and cattle, raising readily 
their homely home, and striking it as speedily. In 
the large cities, they inhabit a distinct quarter of 
the region especially consecrated to pleasure. In 
villages, they sojourn upon the outskirts. At all 
fairs, they are the fairest and most fascinating. But 
they mostly affect religious festivals — the going out 
to tombs in the desert, a few miles from the cities. 
For, on the natal days of saints inhabiting those 
tombs, a religious spree takes place upon the spot, 
and scenes are presented to the contemplative eye, 
not unlike those of Methodist camp-meetings. At 
such times and places they are present "by thou- 
sands, by millions," cried the unmathematical Com- 
mander, ecstatic with his theme, but again without 
the golden sleeve. 

In golden sleeves alone, Commander, is dignity 
and wisdom. 

I said it was a sect vowed to pleasure. From 
earliest youth, they are educated to their profession. 
They do not marry until they have commenced a 
public career. Then the husband is the grand Vi- 
zier and Kapellmeister of his wife's court. 



FAIE FKAILTY. 121 

Let the moralizing mind reflect here, that the 
pursuit of pleasure is an hereditary tenet, dear to 
the husband as to the wife, who can not be false, 
because there is no such thing as faithfulness. And 
let the Moral Keform Society carefully avoid judg- 
ing this frailty on principle ; for in tribes, traditions 
of usage become principle, by the vice of enlight- 
ened lands, where it is a very sorrowful and shame- 
ful thing, bred in deceit and ending in despair. In 
Europe, society squeezes women into this vortex. 
Then it is a mere pis-aller for existence, and loath- 
some much more to the victims themselves than to 
others. In America,, a fair preludes the foul. Se- 
duction smoothes the slopes of the pit, although 
once in, society here, as there, seals inexorably the 
doom of the fallen. For the Ghazeeyah who turns 
from her ways, there is the equality with other 
wives, and no taunting for the past. For the 
woman who once falls in England or America, there 
is no resurrection to sympathy and regard. The 
world, being without sin, casts endless paving- 
stones, until hope, heart, and life are quite crushed 
out. 

Moralizing at Esne ! 

Although the Ghawazee, when they marry out 
of the tribe, do not dishonor their husbands in pub- 
lic estimation, they are by no means held honorable 



122 NILE NOTES. 

while they practice their profession. This is for 
many reasons. But let no moral reformer flatter 
himself upon the moral sense of the East. " No," 
said the Golden-sleeve, " I wouldn't trust my. own 
mother." The Ghawazee are not honorable, because 
being, as Mr. Lane says, the most beautiful of Egyp- 
tian women, they show to the sun, moon, stars, and 
all human eyes, their unveiled faces. Then they 
receive men into their own apartments — ^let us not 
desecrate the sacred name of hareem. And they 
dance unveiled in public, and if you may believe the 
shuddering scandal of the saints at Cairo, each of 
w^hom has a score of women to dance for him alone, 
they adorn with nude grace the midnight revels of 
the Cairene rakes. 

Mehemet All's mercury of virtue rose in his im- 
potent age to such a height of heat, that he ban- 
ished all the Cairene Ghawazee to Esne, which 
sounded morally, until the curious discovered that 
Esne was the favorite river retreat of the Pacha ; and 
the moment they disappeared from Cairo, they were 
replaced by boys dressed like women, who danced 
as the Ghawazee danced, and imitated their costume, 
and all the womanliness of a woman, growing their 
hair, veiling their faces, kohling their eyelashes, 
hennaing their finger and toe-nails. 

And there was also another set of boy-dancers, 



PAIR FRAILTY. 123 

called Gink, into the melancholy mystery of which 
name the discreet and virtuous refrain from prying. 
The Howadji, too, is Herodotean for the nonce, and 
** thinks it better it should not be mentioned." 



XVIII. 

FAIR FRAILTY-CONTINUED. 

And so frailty was all boated up the Nile to Esne ? 
Not quite, and even if it had been, Abbas Pacha, 
grandson of Mehemet Ali, and at the request of 
the old Pacha's daughter, has boated it all back 
again ; Abbas Pacha, heritor of the shreds and 
patches of the Pharaohs' throne, and the Ptolemies', 
and the Cleopatras'. He did well to honor the 
Ghawazee by his permission of return, for what 
was the swart queen but a glorious Ghazeeyah ? 
Ask Mark Antony and Julius Cesar. Nor shall 
Rhodopis be forgotten, centuries older than Cleo- 
patra, supposed to be the builder of one of the 
Pyramids, and of wide Grecian fame. 

Herodotus tells her story. She was a Thracian, 
and fellow-servant of Esop. Xanthus the Samian 
brought her to Egypt, and Charaxus, brother of 
Sappho, ransomed her, for which service, when 
Charaxus returned, Sappho grievously gibed him in 
an ode. Rhodopis became very rich and very famous, 



FAIR FRAILTY. 125 

and sent gifts to Delphi. " And now," says our 
testy and garrulous old guide, as if to wash his 
hands of her iniquity, *' I have done speaking of 
Khodopis." 

Even grandfather Mehemet did not boat all the 
frailty up the Nile. That would have been, if the 
beautiful Ghazeeyah had been the sole Egyptian 
sinner. But this especial sin pays a tenth of the 
whole tax of Egypt, and the Ghawazee are but the 
most graceful groups of Magdalens, not at all the 
crowd. The courtesans who w^ent with veiled 
faces discreetly, who were neither handsome, nor of 
any endowment of grace or charm, to draw the 
general eye; — widows and wives, w^ho, in the ab- 
sence of their lords, mellowed their morals for 
errant cavaliers; — the dead-weighted, sensual, un- 
graceful, inexcusable, and disgusting, mass remained, 
and flourished more luxuriantly. 

The solidest sin always does remain ; — the houris 
as more aerial, are blown away, the sadder sinners 
cling. Law and propriety yearly pour away into 
perdition a flowing surface of addled virtue, vice- 
stained, and a small portion of veritable vice. But 
the great, old, solid sin, sticks steadfastly, like the 
lump of ambergris in the Sultan's cup, flavoring the 
whole draught. For not even the friend of the 
warm slippers and rolling-stone theory can suppose 



126 NILE NOTES. 

that the Muslim are a continent race, or that Me- 
hemet All was Simeon Stylites, because he ex- 
ported the dancing-girls. 

Hear what Abu Taib said in the gardens of Shu- 
bra: 

Once there was a Pacha, who, after drinking 
much wine all his days, lost his taste, and fell in 
danger of his life if he drank of it any more. And 
the Pacha ordered all the wine in the country to be 
cast into the river. And the fair fountains that 
flowed sweet wine of exquisite exhilaration before 
the mosques, and upon the public place, were seized 
and utterly dried up. But the loathsome, stag- 
nant tanks, and ditches of beastly drunkenness that 
festered concealed behind white walls, were un- 
touched, and flowed poison. And the Pacha heard 
what had been done, and said, it was well. And 
far lands heard of the same thing, and said, " Lo! a 
great prince, who removes sores from his inherit- 
ance, and casts out vice from his dominions." 

There are English poets who celebrate the pleas- 
ant position of the eastern woman, and it is rather 
the western fashion of the moment, to fancy them 
not so very miserably situated. But the idea of 
woman disappears entirely from your mind in the 
East, except as an exquisite and fascinating toy. 
The women suggest houris, perhaps, but never an- 



FA lit FKAILTY. j 27 

gels. Devils, possibly, but never friends. And now, 
Pacha, as we stroll slowly by starlight under the 
lamps, by the mud cabins round which the Fellaheen, 
or peasants, sit, and their fierce dogs bark, and see the 
twin tombs of the shekhs gleaming wliite through the 
twilight, while w^e ramble toward the bower of 
Kushuk Arnem, and the still-eyed Xenobi, tell me 
truly, by the sw^orded Orion above us, if you cherish 
large faith in the virtue of men, who, of a voluptu- 
ons climate, born and nursed, shut up dozens of the 
most enticing women in the strict and sacred seclu- 
sion of the hareem, and keep them there without 
knowledge, without ambition — petted girls with the 
proud passions of Southern women, seeing him only 
of men, jealous of each other, jealous of them- 
selves, the slaves of his whims, tender or terrible, 
looking to him for their sole excitement, and that 
solely sensual — rarely tasting the bliss of becoming 
a mother, and taught to stimulate, in indescribable 
ways, the palling and flagging passions of their 
keeper. 

Individually, I lay no great stress on the objec- 
tions of such gentry to the unveiled dancing of 
beautiful women, or to their pleasurable pursuit of 
pleasure ; nor do I find much morality in it. I am 
glad to grant the oriental great virtue ; and do not 
wish to whine at his social and national differences 



128 NILE NOTES. 

from the West. At Alexandria, let the West fade 
from your horizon, and you will sail fascinated for- 
ever. This Howadji holds that the Ghawazee are 
the true philosophers and moralists of the East, 
and that the hareem and polygamy, in general, are 
without defence, viewed morally. Viewed pictur- 
esquely, under palms, with delicious eyes melting 
at lattices, they are highly to be favored and encour- 
aged by all poets and disciples of Epicurus. 

Which, as you know as well as I, we will not 
here discuss. But, as I am out of breath, toiling 
Tup that steep sentence of the hareem, while we 
more leisurely climb the last dust heap toward that 
bower, the sole white wall of the village (how Sa- 
tan loves these dear deceits, as excellent Dr. Bun- 
yan Cheever would phrase it), soothe me soothly 
with those limpid lines of Mr. Milnes, who holds 
strongly to the high human and refining influence 
of the hareem. Does Young England wish to en- 
graft polygamy, among the other patriarchal bene- 
fits, upon stout old England ? 

" Thus in the ever-closed hareem, 

As in the open Western home, 
Sheds womanhood her starry gleam, 

Over our being's busy foam. 

Through latitudes of varying faith, 
Thus trace we still her mission sure, 

To lighten life, to sweeten death ; 
And all for others to endure." 



FAIR FRAILTY. 129 

Every toad carries a diamond in its head, say 

Hope and the Ideal. But in any known toad was it 

ever found ? retorted the Howadji, cutting adrift 

his western morals. 
6* 



XIX. 

KUSHUK ARNEM. 

The Howadji entered the bower of the Ghazee- 
yah. A damsel admitted us at the gate, closely 
veiled, as if women's faces were to be seen no more 
forever. Across a clean little court, up stone steps 
that once were steadier, and we emerged upon a 
small, inclosed stone terrace, the sky-vaulted ante- 
chamber of that bower. Through a little door, 
that made us stoop to enter, we passed into the pe- 
culiar retreat of the Ghazeeyah. It was a small, 
white, oblong room, with but one window, opposite 
the door, and that closed. On three sides there 
were small holes to admit light as in dungeons, but 
too lofty for the eye to look through, like the oriel 
windows of sacristies. Under these openings were 
small glass vases holding oil, on which floated wicks. 
These were the means of illumination. 

A divan of honor filled the end of the room — on 
the side was another, less honorable, as is usual in 
all Egyptian houses — on the floor a carpet, partly 



KUSIIUK A 11 X EM. 131 

covering it. A straw matting extended beyond the 
carpet toward the door : and between the matting 
and the door was a bare space of stone floor, where- 
on to shed the slippers. 

Hadji Hamed, the long cook, had been ill ; but 
hearing of music, and dancing, and Ghawazee, he 
had turned out for the nonce, and accompanied us 
to the house, not all unmindful, possibly, of the 
delectations of the Mecca pilgrimage. He stood 
upon the stone terrace afterward, looking in with 
huge delight. The solemn, long, tomb-pilgrim ! 
The merriest lunges of life were not lost upon him, 
notwithstanding. 

The Howadji seated themselves orientally upon 
the divan of honor. To sit, as Westerns sit, is im- 
possible upon a divan. There is some mysterious 
necessity for crossing the legs, and this Howadji 
never sees a tailor now in lands civilized, but the 
dimness of Eastern rooms and bazaars, the flowing- 
ness of robe, and the coiled splendor of the turban, 
and a world reclining leisurely at ease, rise distinct 
and dear in his mind, like that Sicilian mirage seen 
on divine days from Naples, but fleet as fair. To 
most men, a tailor is the most unsuggestive of mor- 
tals. To the remembering Howadji, he sits a poet. 

The chibouque, and nargileh, and coffee, belong 
to the divan, as the parts of harmony to each other 



132 NILE NOTES. 

I seized the flowing tube of a brilliant amber-hued 
nargileh, such as Hafiz might have smoked, and 
prayed Isis that some stray Persian might chance 
along to complete our company. The Pacha inhaled, 
at times, a more sedate nargileh ; at times, the chi- 
bouque of the Commander, who reclined upon the 
divan below. 

A tall Egyptian female, filially related, I am sure, 
to a gentle giraffe who had been indiscreet with a 
hippopotamus, moved heavily about, lighting the 
lamps, and looking as if her bright eyes were feeding 
upon the flame, as the giraffes might browse upon 
lofty autumn leaves. There was something awful 
in this figure.' She was the type of those tall, angu- 
lar, Chinese-eyed, semi-smiling, wholly-homely, and 
bewitched beings, who sit in eternal profile in the 
sculptures of the temples. She was mystic, like the 
cow-horned Isis. I gradually feared that she had 
come off the wall of a tomb, probably in Thebes 
hard by, and that our Ghaw^azee delights would end 
in a sudden embalming, and laying away in the 
bowels of the hills, with a perpetual prospect of her 
upon the walls. 

Avaunt, spectre ! The fay approaches, and 
Kushuk Arnem entered her bower. A bud no 
longer, yet a flower not too fully blown. Large, 
laughing eyes, red, pulpy lips, white teeth, arching 



KUSHUK ARNEM. 133 

nose, generous-featured, lazy, carelessly self-pos- 
sessed, she came dancing in, addressing the Howadji 
in Arabic — words whose honey they w^ould not have 
distilled through, interpretation. Be content with 
the aroma of sound, if you can not catch the flavor 
of sense — and flavor can you never have through 
another mouth. Smiling and pantomime were our 
talking, and one choice Italian word she knew" — 
huono. Ah ! how much was huono that choice 
evening. Eyes, lips, hair, form, dress, every thing 
that the strangers had or wore, was endlessly 
huono. Dancing, singing, smoking, coffee — huono, 
huono, huonissimo ! How much work one word will 
do! 

The Ghazeeyah entered — not mazed in that azure 
mist of gauze and muslin, w^ierein Cerito floats fas- 
cinating across the scene ; nor in the peacock plu- 
mage of sprightly Lucille Grahn ; nor yet in that 
June cloudiness of aery apparel which Carlotta 
affects ; nor in that sumptuous Spanishness of dark 
drapery wherein Fanny is most Fanny. 

The glory of a butterfly is the starred brilliance 
of its wings. There are who declare that dress 
is divine — who aver that an untoileted woman is 
not wholly a woman, and that you may as w^ell 
paint a saint without his halo, as describe a woman 
without detailing her dress. Therefore, while the 



1^4 NILE NOTES. 

coarser sex veils longing eyes, will we tell the story 
of the Ghazeeyah's apparel. 

Yellow morocco slippers hid her feet, rosy and 
round. Over these brooded a bewildering fullness 
of rainbow silk. Turkish trowsers we call them, 
but they are shintyan in Arabic. Like the sleeve 
of a clergyman's gown, the lower end is gathered 
somewhere, and the fullness gracefully overfalls. I say 
rainbow, although to the Howadji's little cognizant 
eye was the shintyan of more than the seven ortho- 
dox colors. In the bower of Kushuk — nargileh- 
clouded, coffee-scented — are eyes to be strictly 
trusted? 

Yet we must not be entangled in this bewildering 
brilliance. A satin jacket, striped with velvet and 
of open sleeves, wherefrom floated forth a fleecy 
cloud of undersleeve, rolling adown the rosy arms, as 
June clouds down the w^estern rosiness of the sky, 
inclosed the bust. A shawl, twisted of many folds, 
cinctured the waist, confining the silken shintyan. 
A golden necklace of charms girdled the throat, and 
the hair, much unctuated, as is the custom of the 
land, was adorned with a pendent fringe of black 
silk, tipped with gold, which hung upon the neck 
behind. 

Let us confess to a dreamy vaporous veil, over- 
spreading, rather sufl*using with color, the upper 



KUSHUK ARNEM. 135 

part of the arms, and the lower limits of the neck. 
That rosiness is known as tob to the Arabians — a 
mystery whereof the merely masculine mind is not 
cognizant. Beneath the tob, truth allows a beau- 
tiful bud-burstiness of bosom. Yet I swear, by 
John Bunyan, nothing so aggravating as the How- 
adji beholds in saloons unnameable, nearer the Hud- 
son than the Nile. This brilliant cloud, whose 
spirit was Kushuk Arnem, our gay Ghazeeyah 
gathered itself upon a divan, and inhaled vigor- 
ously a nargileh. A damsel in tob and shintyan, 
exhaling azure clouds of aromatic smoke, had not 
been displeasing to that Persian poet, for whose 
coming I had prayed too late. 

But more welcome than he, came the still-eyed 
Xenobi. She entered timidly like a bird. The 
Howadji had seen doves less gracefully sitting upon 
palm-boughs in the sunset, than she nestled upon 
the I'ower divan. A very dove of a Ghazeeyah, a 
quiet child, the last born of Terpsichore. Blow it 
from Mount Atlas, a modest dancing-girl. She sat 
near this Howadji, and handed him, Haroun 
Alrashid ! the tube of his nargileh. Its serpentine 
sinuosity flowed through her fingers, as if the golden 
gayety of her costume were gliding from her alive. 
It was an electric chain of communication, and 
never until some Xenobi of a houri hands the How- 



13G NILE NOTES 

adji the nargileh of Paradise, will the smoke of the 
weed of Shiraz float so lightly, or so sweetly taste. 

Xenobi was a mere bud, of most flexile and 
graceful form — ripe and round as the spring fruit 
of the tropics. Kushuk had the air of a woman for 
whom no surprises survive. Xenobi saw, in every 
new day, a surprise, haply, in every Howadji, a 
lover. 

She was more richly dressed than Kushuk. There 
were gay gold bands and clasps upon her jacket. 
Various necklaces of stamped gold and metallic 
charms clustered around her neck, and upon her head 
a bright silken web, as if a sun-suff'used cloud were 
lingering there, and dissolving, showered down her 
neck in a golden rain of pendants. Then, Venus ! 
more azure still, that delicious gauziness of tob, 
whereof more than to dream is delirium. Wonder- 
ful the witchery of a tob ! Nor can the Howadji 
deem a maiden quite just to nature, who glides 
through the world, unshintyaned and untobed. 

Xenobi was, perhaps, sixteen years old, and a fully 
developed woman. Kushuk Arnem, of some half- 
dozen summers more. Kushuk was unhennaed. 
But the younger, as younger maidens may, graced 
herself with the genial gifts of nature. Her delicate 
filbert nails were rosily tinted on the tips with 
henna, and those pedler poets, meeting her in Para- 



KITS II UK ARNEM. lo7 

dise, would have felt the reason of their chant — 
■" Odors of Paradise, flowers of the henna !" But 
she had no kohl upon the eyelashes, nor like Fatima 
of Damascus, whom the Howadji later saw, were 
her eye-brows shaved and replaced by thick, black 
arches of kohl. Yet fascinating are the almond-eyes 
of Egyptian women, bordered black with the kohl, 
whose intensity accords with the sumptuous passion 
that mingles moist and languid with their light. 
Eastern eyes are full of moonlight. Eastern beauty 
is a dream of passionate possibility, which the How- 
adji would fain awaken by the same spell with 
which the Prince of fairy dissolved the enchanted 
sleep of the princess. Yet kohl and henna are only 
beautiful for the beautiful. In a colTee-shop at 
Esne, bold-faced, among the men, sat a coarse cour- 
tesan sipping coflee and smoking a nargileh, whose 
kohled eyebrows and eyelashes made her a houri of 
hell. 

'' There is no joy but calm," I said, as the mo- 
ments, brimmed with beauty, melted in the starlight, 
and the small room became a bower of bloom, and 
a Persian garden of delight. We reclined, breath- 
ing fragrant fumes, and interchanging, through the 
Golden-sleeved, airy nothings. The Howadji and 
the houris had little in common but looks. Soul- 
less as Undine, and suddenly risen from a laughing 



138 NILE NOTES. 

life in watery dells of lotus, sat the houris, and, like 
the manner, sea-driven upon the enchanted isle of 
Prospero, sat the Howadji, unknowing the graceful 
gossip of fairy. But there is a fairy always folded 
away in our souls, like a bright butterfly chrysalized, 
and sailing eastward, layer after layer of propriety, 
moderation, deference to public opinion, safety of 
sentiment, and all the thick crusts of compromise 
and convention roll away, and, bending southward up 
the Nile, you may feel that fairy fairly flutter her 
wings. And, if you pause at Esne, she will fly out, 
and lead you a will-o'-the-wisp dance across all the 
trim sharp hedges of accustomed proprieties, and 
over the barren flats of social decencies. Dumb is 
that fairy, so long has she been secluded, and can- 
not say much to her fellows. But she feels, and 
sees, and enjoys all the more exquisitely and pro- 
foundly for her long sequestration. 

Presently an old woman came in with a tar, a 
kind of tambourine, and her husband, a grisly old 
sinner, with a rabab, or one-stringed fiddle. Old 
Hecate was a gone Ghazeeyah — a rose-leaf utterly 
shrivelled away from rosiness. No longer a dancer, 
she made music for dancing. And the husband, 
who played for her in her youth, now played with 
her in her age. Like two old votaries who feel 
when they can no longer see, they devoted all the 



KUSIIUK ARNEM. 139 

force of life remaining to the great game of pleasure, 
whose born thralls they were. 

There were two tarabukas and brass castanets, 
and when the old pair were seated upon the carpet 
near the door, they all smote their rude instruments, 
and a wild clang raged through the little chamber. 
Thereto they sang. Strange sounds — such music as 
the angular, carved figures upon the temples would 
make, had they been conversing with us — sounds 
to the ear like their gracelessness to the eye. 

This was Egyptian Polyhymnia preluding Terpsi- 
chore. 



XX. 

TERPSICHORE. 

" The wind is fair, 
The boat is in the bay. 
And the fair mermaid Pilot calls away.- 



KusHUK Arnem quaffed a goblet of hemp arrack. 
The beaker was passed to the upper divan, and the 
Howadji, sipping, found it to smack of aniseed. It 
was strong enough for the Pharaohs to have im- 
bibed — even for Herod before beholding Herodias ; 
for these dances are the same. This dancinsr is 
more ancient than Aboo Simbel. In the land of 
the Pharaohs, the Howadji saw the dancing they 
saw, as uncouth as the temples they built. This 
dancing is to the ballet of civilized lands, what the 
gracelessness of Egypt was to the grace of Greece. 
Had the angular figures of the temple sculptures 
preluded with that music, they had certainly fol- 
lowed with this dancing. 

Kushuk Arnem rose and loosened her shaw» 
girdle in such wise, that I feared she was about to 
shed the frivolity of dress, as Venus shed the sea- 



TERPSICHORE. 141 

foam, and stood opposite the divan, holding her 
brass castanets. Old Hecate beat the tar into a 
thunderous roar. Old husband drew sounds from 
his horrible rabab, sharper than the sting of remorse, 
and Xenobi and the Giraffe each thrummed a tara- 
buka until I thought the plaster would peel from 
the wall. Kushuk stood motionless, while this din 
deepened around her, the arrack aerializing her 
feet, the Howadji hoped, and not her brain. The 
sharp surges of sound swept around the room, 
dashing in regular measure against her moveless- 
ness, until suddenly the whole surface of her frame 
quivered in measure with the music. Her hands 
w^ere raised, clapping the castanets, and she slowly 
turned upon herself, her right leg the pivot, mar- 
vellously convulsing all the muscles of her body. 
When she had completed the circuit of the spot on 
which she stood, she advanced slowly, all the mus- 
cles jerking in time to the music, and in solid, sub- 
stantial spasms. 

It was a curious and wonderful gymnastic. There 
was no graceful dancing — once only there was the 
movement of dancing, when she advanced, throw- 
ing one leg before the other as gipsies dance. But 
the rest was most voluptuous motion — not the lithe 
wooing of languid passion, but the soul of passion 
starting through every sense, and quivering in every 



142 NILE NOTES. 

limb. It was the very intensity of motion, con- 
centrated and constant. The music still swelled 
savagely, in maddened monotony of measure. 
Hecate and the old husband, fascinated with the 
Ghazeeyali's fire, threw their hands and arms ex- 
citedly about their instruments, and an occasional 
cry of enthusiasm and satisfaction burst from their 
lips. Suddenly stooping, stili muscularly moving, 
Kushuk fell upon her knees, and writhed, with 
body, arms, and head upon the floor, still in meas- 
ure — still clanking the castanets, and arose in the 
same manner. It was profoundly dramatic. The 
scenery of the dance was like that of a characteris- 
tic song. It was a lyric of love, which words can- 
not tell — profound, oriental, intense, and terrible. 
Still she retreated, until the constantly down-slip- 
ping shawl seemed only just clinging to her hips, 
and making the same circuit upon herself, she sat 
down, and after this violent and extravagant exer- 
tion was marbly cold. 

Then timid, but not tremulous, the young Xenobi 
arose bare-footed, and danced the same dance — not 
with the finished skill of Kushuk, but gracefully 
and well, and with her eyes fixed constantly upon the 
elder. With the same regular throb of the muscles, 
she advanced and retreated, and the Paradise-pa- 
vilioned prophet could not have felt his heavenly 



TEIIP SI CHOKE. 143 

hareem complete, had he sat smoking and entranced 
with the Howadji. 

Form so perfect was never yet carved in marble 
— not the Venus is so mellowly moulded. Her out- 
line has not the voluptuous excess which is not too 
much — which is not perceptible to mere criticism, 
and is more a feeling flushing along the form, than 
a greater fullness of the form itself. The Greek 
Venus was sea-born, but our Egyptian is sun-born. 
The brown blood of the sun burned along her veins 
— the soul of the sun streamed shaded from her eyes. 
She was still, almost statuesquely still. When she 
danced, it was only stillness intensely stirred, and 
followed that of Kushuk as moonlight succeeds 
sunshine. As she went on, Kushuk gradually rose ; 
and, joining her, they danced together. The Epi- 
cureans of Cairo, indeed — the very young priests of 
Venus, assemble the Gliawazee in the most secluded 
adyta of their dwellings; and there, eschewing the 
mystery of the Hintyan, and the gauziness of the 
tob, they behold the unencumbered beauty of these 
beautiful women. At festivals so fair, arrack, raw 
brandy, and " depraved human nature," naturally 
improvise a ballet whereupon the curtain here falls. 

Suddenly, as the clarion call awakens the long- 
slumbering spirit of the war-horse, old Hecate 
sprang to her feet ; and, loosening her girdle, seized 



144 NILE NOTES. 

the castanets, and with the pure pride of power 
advanced upon the floor, and danced incredibly. 
Crouching, before, like a wasted old willow, that 
merely shakes its drooping leaves to the tempest — 
she now shook her fibres with the vigor of a nascent 
elm, and moved up and down the room with a mira- 
culous command of her frame. 

In Venice, I had heard a gray gondolier, dwindled 
into a ferryman, awakened in a moonlighted mid- 
night, as we swept by, with singers chanting Tasso 
pour his swan-song of magnificent memory into the 
quick ear of night. 

In the Champs Elysees, I had heard a rheumy- 
eyed Invalide cry, with the sonorous enthusiasm of 
Austerlitz, "Vive Napoleon!" as a new Napoleon 
rode by. 

It was the Indian summer goldening the white 
winter — the Zodiacal light far flashing day into the 
twilight. And here was the same in dead old 
Egypt — in a Grhazeeyah who had brimmed her 
beaker with the threescore and ten drops of life. 
Not more strange, and unreal, and impressive in 
their way, the inscrutable remains of Egypt, sand- 
shrouded, but undecayed, than in hers, this strange 
spectacle of an efficient Coryphee of seventy. 

Old Hecate ! thou wast pure pomegranate also, 
and not banana, wonder most wonderful of all — 



TERPSICHORE. 145 

words which must remain hieroglyphics upon these 
pages — and whose explication must be sought in 
Egypt, as they must come hither who would realize 
the freshness of Karnak. 

Slow, sweet, singing followed. The refrain was 
plaintive, like those of the boat songs— ^-soothing, 
after the excitement of the dancing, as nursery lays 
to children after a tired day, '' Buono," Kushuk 
Arnem ! last of the Arnems ; for so her name signi- 
fied. Was it a remembering refrain of Palestine, 
whose daughter you are? " Taib," dove Xenobi ! 
Fated, shall I say, or favored? Pledged life-long 
to pleasure! Who would dare to be? Who but a 
child so careless would dream that these placid rip- 
ples of youth will rock you stormless to El Dorado? 

Allah ! and who cares ? EefiU the amber nar- 
gileh, Xenobi — another fingan of mellow mocha. 
Yet another strain more stirring. Hence, Hecate ! 
shrivel into invisibility with the thundering tar, and 
the old husband with his diabolical rabdb. Waits not 
the one-eyed first officer below, with a linen lantern, 
to pilot us to the boat ? And the beak of the Ibis 
points it not to Syene, Nubia, and a world unknown ? 

Farewell, Kushuk ! Addio, still-eyed dove ! Al- 
most thou persuadest me to pleasure. Wall- 
street, Wall-street ! because you are virtuous, shall 

there be no more cakes and ale ? 

7 



XXI. 

SAKIAS. 

AVe departed at dawD. Before a gentle gale the 
Ibis fleetly flew, in the starlight, serenaded by the 
sakias. 

These endless sighing sakias ! There are fifty 
thousand of them in Egypt-, or were, when Grand- 
father Mehemet was. They required a hundred 
and fifty thousand oxen to work them. But the 
murrain swept away the cattle, and now the Nile 
shores are strewn with the falling mud walls of 
sakias, ruins of the last great Egyptian reign. 
Like huge summer insects, they doze upon the 
bank, droning a melancholy, monotonous song. 
The slow, sad sound pervades the land — one calls 
to another, and he sighs to his neighbor, and the 
Nile is shored with sound no less than sand. Their 
chorus is the swan-song of Egypt. For Egypt is 
effete. The race is more ruined than the temples. 
Nor shall there be a resurrection of an exhausted 
people, until fading roses, buried in the ground, 



SAKIAS. 147 

take root again, or Memnon calls musically once 
more, down the far glad valley of the Nile. 

The sakia is the great instrument of irrigation. 
It is a rude contrivance of two perpendicular 
wheels, turned by a horizontal cog. The outer 
wheel is girdled with a string of earthen jars, 
which descend with every revolution into the pit 
open to the river, in which the wheel turns. As 
the jars ascend, they empty themselves into a 
trough, thence conducted away, or directly into a 
channel of earth ; and the water flowing into the 
fields, by little canals, invests each separate small 
square patch. There are no fences, and the valley 
of the Nile is divided into endless inclosures by 
these shallow canals. The surface of the country 
is regularly veined, and the larger channels are the 
arteries fed by the great sakia heart. Overflowing 
or falling, the Nile is forever nourishing Egypt, and 
far forth-looking from the propylons of temples, 
you may see the land checkered with slight silver 
streaks — tokens of its fealty and the Nile's devotion. 

The sakia is worked by a pair of oxen. Upon 
the tongue of the crank which they turn, sits a boy, 
drowsing and droning, and beating their tail-region 
all day long. Nor is the sad creak of the wheel 
ever soothed by any unctuous matter, which the 
proprietor appropriates to his own proper person, 



148 NILE NOTES. 

and which would also destroy the cherished creek. 
So sit the boys along the Nile, among the cotton, 
tobacco, corn, beans, or whatever other crop, and 
by beating the tail-region of many oxen, cause the 
melancholy music of the river. It has infinite 
variety, but a mournful monotony of effect. Some 
salvias are sharp and shrill ; they almost shriek in 
the tranced stillness. These you may know for the 
youth — these are the gibes of greenness. But sedater 
creaks follow. A plaintive monotony of moan that 
is helpless and hopeless. This is the general sakia 
sigh. It is as if the air simmered into sound upon 
the shore. It is the overtaxed labor of the -land 
complaining, a slave's plaining — low, and lorn, and 
lifeless. Yet, as the summer seems not truly sum- 
mer, until the locusts wind their dozy reeds, so 
Egypt seems not truly Egypt, except when the 
water-wheels sadden the silence. It is the audible 
weaving of the spell. Tlie stillness were not so 
still without it, nor the temples so antique, nor the 
whole land so solitary and dead. 

In books I read that it is the Ranz des Vaches of 
the Fellaheen, and that away from the Nile they 
sigh for the sakia. as it sighs with them at home. 
And truly, no picture of the river would be perfect 
that had not the water-wheels upon the shore. 
They abound in Nubia, and are there taxed heavily 



SAKIAS. 149 

— some seventeen of our dollars, each one. The 
Howadji wonders how such -a tax can be paid, and 
the Nubian live. But if it be not promptly render- 
ed the owner is ejected. He may have as much 
land as he can w^ater, as much Arabian sand or Li- 
byan, as he can coax the Nile to fructify. And 
there nature is compassionate. For out of w^hat 
seems sheer sand you will see springing a deep- 
green patch of grain. 

In upper Egypt and Nubia, the shadoof is sel- 
dom seen. That is a man-power sakia, consisting 
simply of buckets swinging upon a pole, like a 
well bucket, and dipped into the river, and emptied 
above by another, into the channel. There are al- 
wnys two buckets, and the men stand opposite, only 
girded a little about the loins, or more frequently, 
not at all, and plunging the bucket rapidly. It is 
exhausting labor, and no man is engaged more than 
two or three hours at a time. If the bank is very 
liigh, there are two or more ranges of shadoofs, the 
lower pouring into the reservoirs of the upper. The 
shadoofs abound in the sugar-cane region about 
Minyeh. They give a spectral life to the shore. 
The bronze statues moving as if by pulleys, and 
the regular swing of the shadoof. There is no 
creak, but silently in the sun the poles swing, and 
the naked laborers sweat. 



150 NILE NOTES. 

Sakia-spelled the Ibis flew, and awakening one 
midnight, I heard the murmurous music of distant 
bells fillin'g all the air. As one "on summer Sundays 
loiters in flowery fields suburban, and catches the 
city chimes hushed and fiir away, so lingered and 
listened the Howadji along the verge of dreaming. 
Has the ear mirages, mused he, like the eye? 

He remembered the day, and it was Sunday- 
Sunday morning across the sea. Still the clanging 
confusion, hushed into melody, rang on. He heard 
the orthodox sonorousness of St. John's, the sweet 
solemnity of St. Paul's, then the petulant peal of 
the dissenting bells dashed in. But all so sweet 
and far, until the belfry of the old Brick bellowed 
with joy, as if the head of giant Despair were now 
finally broken. Had Nilus wreathed these brows 
with magic lotus ? 

Now, mused the Howadji, haply dreaming still, 
now contrite Gotham, in its Sunday suit of sack- 
cloth and ashes, hies humbly forth to repentance 
and prayer. Perchance some maiden tarries that 
her hair may be fitly folded, that she may wait upon 
the Lord e7i grande tenue. In godly Gotham such 
things have been. Divers of its daughters once 
tarried from the service and sermon that a French 
barber might lay his hand upon their heads, before 
the bishop. Then, like coified cherubim, they stole 



SAKIAS. 151 

sweetly up the church-aisle, well named of grace, 
if its God must abide such worship, and were con- 
firmed — in what ? demanded the now clearly dream- 
ing Howadji. 

Belfry of old Brick, clang not so proudly ! Haply 
the head of the giant Despair is only cracked, not 
yet broken. 

Still trembled the melodious murmur of bells 
through the air, sweet as if the bells rang of the 
shining city, to Christian lingering on the shore. It 
was the marvel of many marvels of travel. The 
dawn opened dim eyes at length, still dreaming of 
that sound, when. the golden-sleeved Commander 
opened the blue door of the cabin, and the Howadji 
then heard the mingled moaning of many sakias, but 
the sweet, far bells no more. • 



XXII. 

UNDER THE PALMS. 

" A motion from the river won, 
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on 
My shallop through the star-strown calm. 
Until another night in night 
I entered, from the clearer light, 
Imbowered vaults of pillar'd Palm." 

Humboldt, the only cosmopolitan and a poet, 
divides the earth by beauties, and celebrates as 
dearest to him, and first fascinating him to travel, 
the climate of palms. The palm is the type of the 
tropics, and when the great Alexander marched 
triumphing through India, some Hindoo, suspecting 
the sweetest secret of Brama, distilled a wine from 
the palm, the glorious fantasy of whose intoxication 
no poet records. 

I knew a palm-tree upon Capri. It stood in select 
society of shining fig-leaves and lustrous oleanders; 
it overhung the balcony, and so looked, far 
overleaning, down upon the blue Mediterranean. 
Through the dream-mists of southern Italian noons, 
it looked up the broad bay of Naples and saw 



UNDEE THE PALMS. 153 

vague Vesuvius melting away ; or at sunset the isles 
of the Syrens, v^hereon they singing sat, and wooed 
Ulysses as he sailed ; or in the full May moonlight 
the oranges of Sorrento shone across it, great and 
golden, permanent planets of that delicious dark. 
And from the Sorrento where Tasso was born, it 
looked across to pleasant Posylippo, where Virgil is 
buried, and to stately Ischia. The palm of Capri 
saw all that was fairest and most famous in the bay 
of Naples. 

A wandering poet, whom I knew, sang a sweet 
song to the palm, as he dreamed in the moonlight 
upon that balcony, But it was only the freema- 
sonry of sympathy. It was only syllabled moon- 
shine. For the palm was a poet too, and all palms 
are poets. 

Yet when I asked the bard what the palm-tree 
sang in its melancholy measures of weaving, he told 
me that not Vesuvius, nor the Syrens, nor Sorrento, 
nor Tasso, nor Virgil, the stately Ischia, nor all the 
broad, blue beauty of Naples bay, was the theme of 
that singing. But partly it sang of a river forever 
flowing, and of cloudless skies, and green fields that 
never faded, and the mournful music of water-wheels 
and the wald monotony of a tropical life — and 
partly of the yellow silence of the desert, and of 
drear solitudes inaccessible, and of wandering cara- 



154 NILE NOTES. 

vans, and lonely men. Then of gardens overhang- 
ing rivers, that roll gorgeous-shored through west- 
ern fancies ; of gardens in Bagdad watered by the 
Euphrates and the Tigris, whereof it was the fringe 
and darling ornament ; of oases in those sere, sad 
deserts where it overfountained fountains, and every 
leaf was blessed. More than all, of the great Orient 
universally, where no tree was so abundant, so loved 
and so beautiful. 

When I lay under that palm-tree in Capri in the 
May moonlight, my ears were opened, and I heard 
all that the poet told me of its song. 

Perhaps it was because I came from Rome, where 
the holy week comes into the year as Christ en- 
tered Jerusalem, over palms. For in the magnifi- 
cence of St. Peter's, all the pomp of the most 
pompous of human institutions is on one day cha- 
ractered by the palm. The Pope, borne upon his 
throne, as is no other monarch — with wide-wav- 
ing flabella attendant, moves, blessing the crowd, 
through the great nave. All the red-legged cardi- 
nals follow, each of whose dresses would build a 
chapel, so costly are they, and the crimson-crowned 
Greek patriarch with long silken black beard, and 
the crew of motley which the Roman clergy is, 
crowd after in shining splendor. 

No ceremony of imperial Rome had been more 



UNDER THE PALMS. 155 

imposing, and never witnessed in a temple more im- 
perial. But pope, patriarch, cardinals, bishops, 
ambassadors, and all the lesser glories, bore palm- 
branches in their hands. Not veritable palm 
branches, but their imitation in turned yellow 
wood ; and all through Eome that day, the palm 
branch was waving and hanging. Who could not 
see its beauties, even in the turned yellow wood? 
Who did not feel it was a sacred tree as well as 
romantic ? 

For palm branches were strewn before Jesus as 
he rode into Jerusalem, and forever, since, the palm 
symbolizes peace. > Wherever a grove of palms 
waves in the low moonlight or starlight wind, it is 
the celestial choir chanting '' peace on earth, good- 
will to men." Therefore is it the foliage of the old 
religious pictures. Mary sits under a palm, and the 
saints converse under palms, and the prophets 
prophecy in their shade, and cherubs float with 
palms over the martyr's agony. Nor among pic- 
tures is there any more beautiful than Correggio's 
Flight into Egypt, wherein the golden-haired angels 
put aside the palm branches, and smile sunnily 
through, upon the lovely mother and the lovely child. 

The palm is the chief tree in religious remem- 
brance and religious art. It is the chief tree in 
romance and poetry. But its sentiment is always 



156 NILE NOTES. 

eastern, and it always yearns for the East. In the 
West it is an exile, and pines in the most sheltered 
gardens. Among western growths in the western 
air, it is as unsphered as Hafiz in a temperance 
society. Yet of all western shores it is happiest 
in Sicily ; for Sicily is only a bit of Africa drifted 
westward. There is a soft southern strain in the 
Sicilian skies, and the palms drink its sunshine like 
dew. Upon the tropical plain behind Palermo, 
among the sun-sucking aloes, and the thick, shape- 
less cactuses, like elephants and rhinoceroses en- 
chanted into foliage, it grows ever gladly. For the 
aloe is of the East, and the prickly pear, and upon 
that plain the Saracens have been, and the palm sees 
the Arabian arch, and the oriental sign manual 
stamped upon the land. 

In the Villa Serra di Falco, within sound of the 
vespers of Palermo, there is a palm beautiful to 
behold. It is like a Georgian slave in a Pacha's 
hareem. Softly shielded from eager winds, gently 
throned upon a slope of richest green, fringed with 
brilliant and fragrant flowers, it stands separate and 
peculiar in the odorous garden air. Yet it droops 
and saddens, and bears no fruit. Vain is the ex- 
quisite environment of foreign fancies. The poor 
slave has no choice but life. Care too tender will 
not suffer it to die, pride and admiration surround 



UNDER THE P\LMS. 157 

it with the best beauties, and feed it upon the 
warmest sun. But I heard it sigh as I passed. A 
wind blew w^arm from the East, and it lifted its 
arms hopelessly, and when the wind, love-laden 
with most subtle sweetness, lingered, loth to fly, 
the palm stood motionless upon its little green 
mound, and the flowers were so fresh and fair, and 
the leaves of the trees so deeply hued, and the na- 
tive fruit so golden and glad upon the boughs, 
that the still, warm, garden air, seemed only the 
silent, voluptuous sadness of the tree ; and had I 
been a poet my heart would have melted in song 
for the proud, pining palm. 

But the palms are not only poets in the West, 
they are prophets as well. They are like heralds 
sent forth upon the farthest points to celebrate to 
the traveler the glories they foreshow. Like spring 
birds they sing a summer unfading, and climes 
where Time wears the year as a queen a rosary of 
diamonds. The mariner, eastward-sailing, hears 
tidings from the chance palms that hang along the 
southern Italian shore. They call out to him across 
the gleaming calm of a Mediterranean noon : " Thou 
happy mariner, our souls sail with thee." 

The first palm undoes the West. The Queen of 
Sheba and the Princess Shemselnihar look then 
upon the most Solomon of Howadjis. So far the 



158 NILE NOTES. 

Orient has come — not in great glory, not handsome- 
ly, but as Rome came to Britain in Roman soldiers. 
The crown of imperial glory glittered yet and only 
upon the seven hills, but a single ray had pene- 
trated the northern night — and what the golden 
house of Nero was to a Briton contemplating a 
Roman soldier, is the East to the Howadji first be- 
holding a palm. 

At Alexandria you are among them. Do not de- 
cry Alexandria as all Howadji do. To my eyes it 
was the illuminated initial of the oriental chapter. 
Certainly it reads like its heading — camels, mosques, 
bazaars, turbans, baths, and chibouques — and the 
whole East rows out to you, in the turbaned and 
fluttering-robed rascal who officiates as your pilot, 
and moors you in the shadow of palms under the 
Pacha's garden. Malign Alexandria no more, al- 
though you do have your choice of camels or omni- 
buses to go to your hotel ; for when you are there 
and trying to dine, the wild-eyed Bedoueen who 
serves you, will send you deep into the desert by 
his masquerading costume and his eager, restless 
eye, looking as if he would momently spring through 
the window, and plunge into the desert depths. 
These Bedoueen or Arab servants are like steeds of 
the sun for carriage horses. They fly, girt with 
wild fascination, for what will they do next? 



UNDER THE PALMS. 159 

As you donkey out of Alexandria to Pompey's 
Pillar, you will pass a beautiful garden of palms, 
and by sunset nothing is so natural as to see only 
those trees. Yet the fascination is lasting. The 
poetry of the first exiles you saw, does not perish 
in the presence of the nation ; for those exiles stood 
beckoning like angels at the gate of Paradise, sor- 
rowfully ushering you into the glory whence them- 
selves were outcasts forever : — and as you curiously 
looked in passing, you could not believe that their 
song was truth, and that the many would be as 
beautiful as the one. 

Thenceforward, in the land of Egypt, palms are 
perpetual. They are the only foliage of the Nile ; 
for we will not harm the modesty of a few mimosas 
and sycamores by foolish claims. They are the 
shade of the mud villages, marking their site in the 
landscape, so that the groups of palms are the 
number of villages. They fringe the shore and the 
horizon. The sun sets golden behind them, and 
birds sit swinging upon their boughs and float glori- 
ous among their trunks ; on the ground beneath 
are flowers ; the sugar-cane is not harmed by the 
ghostly shade, nor the tobacco, and the yellow 
flowers of the cotton-plant star its dusk at evening. 
The children play under them ; the old men crone 
and smoke ; the donkeys graze ; the surly bison and 



160 NILE NOTES. 

the conceited camels repose. The old Bible pic- 
tures are ceaselessly painted, but with softer, 
clearer colors than in the venerable book. 

The palm-grove is always enchanted. If it 
stretch inland too alluringly, and you run ashore 
to stand under the bending boughs, to share the 
peace of the doves swinging in the golden twilight, 
and to make yourself feel more scripturally, at least 
to surround yourself with sacred emblems, having 
small other hope of a share in the beauty of holi- 
ness — yet you will never reach the grove. You 
will gain the trees, but it is not the grove you 
fancied — that golden gloom will never be gained — 
it is an endless El Dorado gleaming along these 
shores. The separate columnar trunks ray out in 
foliage above ; but there is no shade of a grove, no 
privacy of a wood, except, indeed, at sunset, 

" A privacy of glorious light." 

Each sinGfle tree has so little shade that the mass, 
standing at wide ease, can never create the shady 
solitude, without which, there is no grove. 

But the eye never wearies of palms, more than 
the ear of singing birds. Solitary they stand upon 
the sand, or upon the level, fertile land in groups, 
with a grace and dignity that no tree surpasses. 
Very soon the eye beholds in their forms the origi- 



UNDER THE PALMS. IGl 

nal type of the columns which it will afterward 
admire in the temples. Almost the first palm is 
architecturally suggestive, even in those western 
gardens — but to artists living among them and see- 
ing only them ! Men's hands are not delicate in the 
early ages, and the fountain fairness of the palms 
is not very flowingly fashioned in the capitals ; but 
in the flowery perfection of the Parthenon the palm 
triumphs. The forms of those columns came from 
Egypt, and that which was the suspicion of the 
earlier workers, was the success of more delicate 
designing. So is the palm in wound with our art, 
and poetry, and religion, and of all trees would the 
Howadji be a palm, wide- waving peace and plenty, 
and feeling his kin to the Parthenon and Raphael's 
pictures. 

But nature is absolute taste, and has no pure 
ornament, so that the palm is no less useful than 
beautiful. The family is infinite and ill understood. 
The cocoa-nut, date, and sago, are all palms. Ropes 
and sponges are wrought of their tough interior fibre. 
The various fruits are nutritious ; the wood, the 
roots, and the leaves, are all consumed. It is one 
of nature's great gifts to her spoiled sun-darlings. 
Whoso is born of the sun is made free of the world. 
Like the poet Thomson, he may put his hands in 
his pockets and eat apples at leisure. 



162 NILE NOTES. 

I do not find that the Egyptians ever deified the 
palm, as some of them did the crocodile. And 
therein I find a want of that singular shrewdness 
of perception which the poet Martineau perpetu- 
all}^ praises in that antique people. It was a miser- 
ably cowardly thing to make a god of a dragon, 
who dined and supped upon you and your friends 
whenever he could catch you ; who did nothing 
but stretch his scales upon the sand in the sun, and 
left only suspicious musk-balls as a legacy to his 
worshippers. To deify that mole-eyed monster, and 
then carefully embalm the dead abomination, looked 
very like fear, spite of Thothmes, Psamitticus, and 
Eamses the Great. For, meanwhile, the land en- 
tertained angels unawares. They were waving 
gracious wings over the green fields, and from the 
womb of plenty dropped the sweet, nutritious 
dates, and from the plumage of those wings were 
houses thatched. And every part of the beautiful 
body, living or dead, was a treasure to the mole- 
eyed crocodile-worshippers. The land was covered 
with little gods, whispering peace and plenty ; but 
they were no more deified than the sweet stray 
thoughts of the villagers. Indeed, poet Harriet, 
your erudite Egyptians went out of their way to 
worship devils. 

They do better, even to this day, higher up the 



UNDEJi THE PALMS. 163 

river. Along the remote shores of the white Nile, 
are races wild and gentle, who extract the four 
lower front teeth for beauty, and worship the great 
trees. And truly, in the tropics, the great tree is 
a great god. Far outspreading shielding arms, he 
folds his worshippers from the burning sun, and 
wrestles wondrously with the wildest gales. Birds 
build in the sweet security of his shade. Fruit 
ripens and falls, unt ended, from his beneficent 
boughs. At midnight the winds converse with 
him, and he hides the stars. He outlives genera- 
tions, and is a cherished tradition. 

There is a godlike god ! A great tree could 
proselyte even among Christians. The Boston elm 
has moved hearts that Park street and Brattle street 
have never intenerated. There is a serious, sensible 
worship ! The God hath duration, doth nothing 
harm, and imparts very tangible blessings. The 
Egyptian worship of the crocodile is very thin, 
measured by this Dinka religion of the tree. And 
is the crocodile's a loftier degree of life than the 
tree's ? 

It is the date-palm which is so common and 
graceful in Egypt. Near Asyoot, the ascending 
Howadji sees for the first time the Dom palm. 
This is a heavier, huskier tree, always forked. It 
has a very tropical air, and solves the mystery of 



164 NILE NOTES. 

gingerbread nuts. For if the hard, brown fruit of 
the Dom be not the hard, brown nuts which our 
credulous youth ascribed to the genius of the baker 
at the corner, they are certainly the type of those 
gingered blisses ; and never did the Howadji seem 
to himself more hopelessly lost in the magic of 
Egypt and the East, than when he plucked ginger- 
bread from a palm-tree. 

The Dom is coarse by the side of the feathery 
date-palm, like a clumsy brake among maiden hair 
ferns. It is tropically handsome, but is always the 
plebeian palm. It has clumsy hands and feet, and, 
like a frowsy cook, gawks in the land. But, plumed 
as a prince and graceful as a gentleman, stands the 
date ; and whoever travels among palms, travels in 
good society. Southward stretches the Ibis, and 
morning and evening sees few other trees. They 
sculpture themselves upon memory, more fairly 
than upon these old columns. The wave of their 
boughs henceforward, wherever you are, will be the 
wave of the magician's wand, and you will float 
again iipon the Nile, and wonder how were shaped 
the palms upon the shore, when Adam sailed with 
Eve down the rivers of Eden. 



XXIII. 

ALMS! SHOPKEEPER! 

There are but two sounds in Egypt : the sigh 
of the sakia, and the national cry of " bucksheesh, 
Howadji" — Alms, O shopkeeper! Add the cease- 
less bark of curs, if you are trinitarian, and you 
will find your mystic number everywhere made 
good. 

" Bucksheesh Howadji," is the universal greeting. 
From all the fields, as you stroll along the shore, or 
sail up the river, swells this vast shout. Young 
and old, and both sexes, in every variety of shriek, 
whine, entreaty, demand, contempt, and indifference, 
weary the Howadji's soul with the incessant ciy. 
Little children who cannot yet talk, struggle to 
articulate it. Father and mother shout it in full 
chorus. The boys on the tongues of sakias, the 
ebony statues at the shadoofs, the spectres in the 
yellow-blossomed cotton-field, or standing among 
the grain, break their long silence with this cry 
only : " Alms, shopkeeper." 



Ib6 NILE NOTES. 

It is not always a request. Girls and boys laugh 
ds they shout it, nor cease picking cotton or cut- 
ting stalks. Groups of children, with outstretched 
hands, surround you in full chorus, if you pause to 
sketch, or shoot, or loiter. They parry your glances 
with the begging. Have the sleepy-souled Egyp- 
tians learned that if Howadji have evil eyes, there 
is no surer spell to make them disappear, than an 
appeal to their pockets ? Like a prayer, the whole 
land repeats the invocation, and with the usual 
amount of piety and the pious. 

Yet sometimes it is an imperial demand ; and you 
would fancy Belisarius, or Ramses the Great, sat 
begging upon the bank. Sauntering, in a golden 
sunset, along the shore at Edfoo, a w^andering 
minstrel in the grass tapped his tarabuka as the 
Howadji passed, that they should render tribute. 
The unnoting Howadji passed on. Thankless trade 
the tax-gatherer, thou tarabuka thrummer! — and 
he looked after us with contempt for the Christian 
dogs. 

Farther on, a voice shouted, as if the Howadji 
had passed a shrine unkneeling : "shopkeepers! 
shopkeepers ! " But dignity is deaf, and they saun- 
tered on. Then more curtly and angrily : " shop- 
keepers ! shopkeepers !" — as if a man had discovered 
false weight in his wares. And constantly nearing, 



ALMS! O SHOPKEEPER! 167 

the howl of Howadji grew intolerable, until there 
was a violent clapping of hands, and a blear-eyed 
Egyptian ran in front of us, like a ragingly mad 
emperor : " Alms ! shopkeeper !" '' To the devil, 
Egyptian !" 

For no shopkeeper on record ever gave alms 
except to the miserable, deformed, old, and blind. 
They are the only distinctions you can make or 
maintain, in an otherwise monotonous mass of 
misery. Nation of beggars, effortless, effete, buck- 
sheesh is its prominent point of contact with the 
Howadji, who, revisiting the Nile in dreams, hears 
far-sounding and forever : " Alms, shopkeeper !" 



XXIV. 

SYENE. 

Some from farthest South — 
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, 
Meroe, Nilotick isle." 

Approaching Assouan, or the Greek Syene, which 
we will henceforth call it, as more graceful and mu- 
sical, the high bluffs with bold masses of rock her- 
alded a new scenery — and its sharp lofty forms were 
like the pealing trumpet tones, announcing the cri- 
sis of the struggle. It was a pleasant January morn- 
ing, that the Ibis skimmed along the shore. The 
scenery was bolder than any she had seen in her 
flight. Rocks broke the evenness of the river's 
surface, and in the heart of the hills the river seemed 
to end, it was so shut in by the rocky cliffs and 
points. 

The town Syene is a dull mud mass, like all 
other Egyptian towns. But palms spread luxuri- 
antly along the bank, and on the shores of Ele- 
phantine — the island oj)posite — sweeps and slopes 
of greenery stretched westward from the eye. 

Upon that shore the eye lingers curiously upon the 



SYENE. 169 

remains of a Christian convent, where there are yet 
grottoes, formerly used as chapels and shrines, and 
still as you look and linger, the forms and faces of 
Christian lands begin to rise, and reel before your 
fancy, and you half fear, while you are fascinated, 
that the East will fade in that western remembrance, 
until some Arab beldame — brown and unhuman as 
a mummy from the hills, and fateful as Atropos — 
peers into your dreaming eyes, and tells you that on 
that site an old king of the land buried incredible 
treasure, before he went to war against the Nubi- 
ans. The miserly monarch left nothing for his fami- 
ly or friends, and all was committed to the charge 
of an austere magician. Years passed, and the king 
came no more. The relatives sought to obtain the 
treasure, and, foiling the magician, slew him upon the 
shore. But dying, he lived more terribly ; for he 
rose a huge serpent, that devoured all his assailants. 
Years pass, and the king comes no more. Yet the 
serpent still w^atches the treasure, and once every 
midnight, at the culmination of certain stars, he de- 
scends to the Nile to drink, while so wonderful a 
light streams from his awful head, that if the king 
comes not, it is not because he cannot see the way. 
Were the Aurora in the east, the Howadji would 
suspect the secret, and when it shone no more, know 
that the king had returned to Syene. 



170 NILE NOTES. 

It is the city of the cataract. Built at the en- 
trance of the rapids, it is the chief point for the Nu- 
bian-bound voyager, and is the bourne of most Nile 
travelers. The Ibis had flown hither from Cairo in 
twenty-two days — a flight well flown ; for we had 
met melancholy Howadji, who had been fifty days 
from Alexandria. And the ancient mariner of the 
Nile — will he ever behold Syene, or see it only a palm- 
fringed mirage upon the shore, as he dashes up and * 
down the cataract ? But do not turn there, reflec- 
tive reader, when you ascend the Nile. Believe no 
Verde Giovanes who give breakfasts on Phil«, and 
decry Nubia. Push on, farther and faster — as if 
you must ride the equator before you pause — as if 
you could not sink deep enough in the strangeness 
and sweetness of tropical travel. Believe an impar- 
tial Howadji who has no cangie or other boats to 
let at Mahratta, that Nubia is a very different land 
from Egypt, and that you have not penetrated an- 
tiquest Egypt until you have been awe-stricken by 
the silence which was buried ages ago in Aboo Sim- 
bel, and by the hand-folded Osiride figures, which 
people, like dumb and dead gods, that dim, demon- 
iac hall. 

The beach of Syene was busy. Small craft were 
loading, and swarms of naked boys were driving lit- 
tle donkeys laden with sacks of dates, gum-arabic, 



1 



i 



SYENE. 171 

tamarinds and other burdens, from Sennaar, and 
the tropical interior, pleasant to the imagination as 
to the taste. Huge camels loomed in the back- 
ground, sniffing serenely, and growling and grum- 
bling, as they were forced to kneel, and ponderous 
loads were heaped upon their backs. Shattered 
hulks of dahabieh and cangie lay, bare-ribbed car- 
casses, upon the sand, and deformed and blear-eyed 
wrecks of men and women crept, worm-like, in and 
out of them. Men, and women, too, in coarse blank- 
ets, or Mrs. Bull's blue night-gowns, brought all 
kinds of savage spears, and clubs, and ostrich eggs, 
and gay baskets, and clustered duskily on the shore 
opposite the boat, and waited silently and passion- 
lessly until they could catch the eye of the How- 
adji — then as silently elevated their wares with one 
hand, and with the other held up indicative fingers 
of the price. Unless trade more active goes on 
with other dahabieh than with the Ibis, the How- 
adji suspects the blanketed and night-gowned Sye- 
nites do not live solely by such barter. Behind this 
activity, unwonted and unseen hitherto, a grove of 
thick palms broad-belted the beach, over which, in 
a blue sky, burned the noonday sun. 

The Howadji landed, nevertheless, and rode 
through the town ,on donkeys. Dry dust under 
foot, yellow, ratty-looking dogs barking from the 



172 NILE NOTES. 

mud-caked roofs, women unutterable, happily hid- 
ing their faces, men blanketed or naked, idly star- 
ing, sore-eyed children beseeching bucksheesh, woe- 
less want everywhere, was the sum of sight in 
Syene. Thither, in times past, Juvenal was ban- 
ished, and dungeoned in Africa, had leisure to 
repent his satire and remember Rome. For the Ro- 
mans reared a city here, and Sir Gardner found re- 
mains some years since. But it was hard to believe 
that any spot could so utterly decay, upon which 
Rome had once set its seal. To a tourist from the 
lost Pleiad, there would have been very little difier- 
ence between the brown mummies who stood silent 
aaiong the huts of Syene and the yellow ratty curs 
that barked peevishly, as our donkeys trotted along. 
Brutes can never sink beneath a certain level. But 
there is no certain level of degradation beneath 
which men may not fall. The existence of the Sye- 
nites is as morally inexplicable as that of loathsome 
serpents in lonely deserts. In these lands you seem 
to have reached the outskirts of creation — the sink 
of nature— and almost suspect that its genius is too 
indolent ever to be entirely organized. For all 
strength should be sweet, and all force made fair— 
a fact which is clearly forgotten or disproved in 

Syene. 

The Howadji left the houses, and were instantly 



S Y E N E . 173 

ill the desert — the wild, howling wilderness, that 
stretches ungreened to the Red Sea. It was not a 
plain of sand, but a huge hilliness of rock and sand 
commingled. There was none of the grandeur of 
the sand-sea, for there was no outlet for the eye to 
the horizon. It was like that craggy, desolate, 
diamond-strewn valley, into which Sinbad was car- 
ried by the roc. All around us there was much 
glittering, but I saw few gems. One solitary man 
was watering with a shadoof a solitary inclosure 
of sand. A few spare blades of grass, like the 
hairs on a bald head, were visible here and there, 
but nothing to reward such toil. It fliintly greened 
the sand, that small inclosure ; but the man, at his 
hopeless labor, was a fitting figure for the land- 
scape. 

Among the tombs grouped together in the desert, 
the Howadji seemed hundreds of miles from men. 
There is nothing so dreary as an Egyptian burial- 
place. It is placed always on the skirts of the 
desert, where no green thing is. Huge scaly domes, 
like temples where ghouls v/orship, were open to 
the wild winds, and the stones lay irregularly scat- 
tered, buried in the sand. It was Lido-like, because 
it was sand, but inexpressibly sadder than those 
Hebrew graves upon the Adriatic shore; for here 
the desert, illimitable, stole all hope away. 



174 NILE NOTES. 

A solitary camel passed — phantom-like — with his 
driver. Noiseless their tread. No word was spoken, 
no sign made. The Muslim looked at us impassibly, 
as if we had been grotesque carvings upon the 
tombs. The low wind went pacing deliriously 
through the defiles. The silent solitude stifled 
thought, and seemed to numb the soul with its 
deadness. But suddenly palms waved over us like 
hands of blessing, and, caressing the shore of Syene, 
ran the victor of the desert, blue-armored from his 
cataract triumph. > 



XXV. 

THE TREATY OF SYENE. 

At sunset a cloud of dust. 

It was a donkey cavalcade, descending the beach. 
Foremost rode the captain of the cataract, habited 
blackly, with a white turban. The pilotage through 
the cataract is the monopoly of a club of pilots 
(Mercury, God of commerce, forgive the name I) 
with some one of ^vhich the bargain must be con- 
cluded. They all try to cheat each other, of course ; 
and probably manage the affairs of the partnership, 
by allowing each member, in turn, an illimitable 
chance of cheating. The white-turbaned, black- 
habited donkestrian was the very reis of reises, the 
sinfulest sinner. 

Behind him thronged a motley group, cantering 
upon small donkeys. At length the spell was suc- 
cessful, and the spirits were coming. Black spirits 
and white, blue spirits and gray, were mingled and 
mingling. Long men and short, bald and gnsly, 
capped and turbaned variously, and swathed in un- 
gainly garments, that flew and fluttered in the 
breeze of fheir speed, and blent with the dust of the 



176 NILE NOTES. 

donkeys, made great commotion in the golden quiet 
of sunset. 

The cavalcade was magically undonkeyed ; the 
savages sprang, and shambled, and tumbled off, 
while their beasts were yet in full motion, and 
were mounting the plank, and plunging upon the 
Ibis, before the animals had fairly halted. Then 
ensued the greeting, the salaaming. X This is an 
exquisitely ludicrous ceremony to the spectator. It 
commences with touching hands and repeating 
some formula of thanksgiving and prayer. It con- 
tinues by touching hands and repeating the formula, 
which is by no means brief, and is rattled off as un- 
concernedly as Koman priests rattle off their morn- 
ing masses, looking all around, and letting the 
words run. When it is finished, the parties kiss 
their own hands and separate. Generally, having 
nothing to say, they go apart after this elaborate 
greeting, and separate silently at last, unless, as usu- 
al, they quarrel stoutly before parting. 

It was amusing to see the Commander, conducting 
this ceremony with several. The point seemed to 
be, who should have the last word. When the 
innocent spectator supposed the how-d'ye-do al- 
ready said, the actors burst forth again, and kept 
bursting forth until kissing time. It shows the 
value of time to a people who are fifteen minutes 



THE TREATY OF SYENE. 177 

saying, "how are you?" And yet, the Syenites, 
and all other Egyptians have the advantage of us in 
some ways. They salaam at great length; and 
then, having nothing to say, are silent. We salaam 
very briefly ; and then, having nothing to say, talk 
a great deal. After all, some Howadji doubt 
whether a Syenite reis, sitting silent in the sunset, 
smoking his pipe, is not as fair a figure to imagina- 
tion as Verde Giovane, or all the Piu Griovanes sit- 
ting in white- gloves and bright boots, and talking 
through an act in an opera-box. 

The salaaming accomplished, the savages seated 
themselves about the deck. The captain of the 
cataract, as one of the high contracting parties, sat 
next the cabin, before which sat the other party — 
the Howadji. The Commander of the Faithful, in 
full pontificals, enthroned himself upon a chair in 
the centre of the deck. Chibouques were lighted, 
coffee brought by the Hadji Hamed, whose solemni- 
ty was not softened as on that Terpsichorean night 
at Esne, and zealously puffing and sipping, the 
council commenced. 

The Howadji knows no occasion, except similar 
diplomatic assemblies, which could present a group 
of more imbecile faces. The want of pride, of 
manliness, of dignity, of force, of all that makes the 
human face divine, was supplied by an expression 



178 NILE NOTES. 

of imbecile cunning, ridiculously transparent. The 
complexions were of every color, from yellow cop- 
per to Nubian deadness of blackness. It was as 
hateful to be treating with such human caricatures, 
as it would have been with apes. The natural 
savage may be noble — certainly the records of In- 
dian life are rich in dignity, heroism, and manliness. 
But a race effete — the last lees of what was a na- 
tion, are not to be gilded when they have sunken 
into imbecility, because the elder inhabitants of the 
land were noble. Howbeit the poet Martineau 
could watch these men and sing rapturously of "the 
savage faculty." Learn at Syene, unpoetic How- 
adji ! that not the savage faculty of a dotard race, 
but the pure providence of God, takes you up and 
down the cataract. 

The conditions of the treaty, as of many others, 
were mostly understood before the Congress assem- 
bled. Prolix palaver and the dexterous seizing of 
chance advantages, were the means of attaining 
those conditions, and the Commander shook out his 
golden-sleeves, as Metternich his powdered wig at 
Vienna, then crossed his eyes like the arbiter of 
many fates, and. said, pleasantly puffing, in Arabic — 

" You took up an English boat this morn- 
ing?" 

The captain of the cataract responded " taib," 



THE TREATY OF SYENE. 179 

meaning, "yes, very true;" and the high contract- 
ors smoked significantly. 

" A good wind for passing the cataract," contin- 
ued the Commander. No answer, but a ceaseless 
puffing, and a dubious, indifferent shrug. The fact 
being so, and the passage much depending upon the 
wind, it was an advantage, say the five of trumps, 
for the Commander, and there was a brief silence. 
Not to irritate by following up advantages^ Golden- 
sleeve suggested mildly, " quite a pleasant day," 
and smiled benignly upon the last rosy blushings 
of the west. 

"Quite a pleasant day," retorted the Reis, with- 
out showing his hand, but meditating a play. 

The captain of the cataract raised his eyes care- 
lessly to the far outspreading yards of the Ibis, 
glanced along her deck with his shrunken, soulless 
orbs, puffed portentously, then slowly said, "your 
boat is too large to go up the cataract." The 
knave of trumps, for the boat was very large. 

But the Commander puffed, and the reis puffed, 
and we all puffed, as if nothing had been said. The 
motley cavalcade of the reis squatted upon the 
deck, stared at the Howadji, and listened to the talk, 
while they passed a nargileh around the circle, and 
grunted and groaned intense satisfaction and delight. 

" This boat went up the cataract last year," 



180 nilp: notes. 

commenced the Commander, as if opening up an 
entirely new topic, and quite ignoring the knave. 
Silence again, and great cloudiness from the chi- 
bouques. 

"Many boats pass up this year?'' 

*' Many, and pay high." The Commander lost 
that lift. 

G-radually the face of Golden-sleeve settled into 
a semi-sternness of expression. He exhaled smoke 
with the air of a man v^hose word was final, and in 
whose propositions the finger of fate was clearly to 
be discerned, and whom to withstand, would be the 
sin against the Pacha. Curious to contemplate! 
In the degree that the Commander's face waxed 
stern, and his eyes darkened with decision, crept a 
feline softness of sweetness over the visasfe of the 
reis of reises, and his mole eyes more miserably 
dwindled, and the smoke curled more lightly from 
his pipe. His body squirmed snake-like as he 
glanced, sycophantically entreating, at the How- 
adji. How clearly the crisis was coming ! Astute 
Commander in full pontificals ! 

At length, like a bold lover, the Golden-sleeve 
popped the question. Then what smiling, what 
snaky sweetness, what utter inability to reply. 

"Tell him," said the Pacha, " that going or ^r^iy- 
ing is quite indifferent to us. — " 



THE TREATY OP SYENE. 181 

The captain of the cataract received the inter- 
pretation like glad tidings, and smiled as if it would 
solace his soul to embrace the company. 

The question was popped again— 

" Six hundred piastres," simpered, almost inaudi- 
bly, the old sinner. 

" Damn ! Six hundred devils," exclaimed the 
Commander in English, shoving his chair back — 
frowning and springing up. " Vf e'U not go." And 
the golden-sleeved cloak became suddenly a gilt- 
edged cloud, pregnant with the maddest tempests. 

But unconcerned puffed the captain of the cata- 
ract, smoking as serenely as Vesuvius during a Nor- 
way gale — and unconcerned puffed all the lieuten- 
ants and majors and under-scrubbery of the cata- 
ract, as if the world were not about to end. 

Innocent Howadji ! It was only part of the 
play. The Commander's face and manner said 
plainly enough all the time, "If you think I come 
hither as a lion it were pity of my life," and pres- 
ently he sat down again with a fresh pipe, and an- 
other fingan of mocha, calmly as any other actor 
who has made a point, but will waive your appro- 
bation. Mildly smoking, he suggested pleasantly, 

"We don't pay six hundred piastres." 

Smoky silence — 

"We pay about four hundred and fifty." 



182 NILE NOTES. 



Smoky silenc( 

" Taib — good," said the captain of the cataract, 
that being the preconceived price of both parties. 

A general commotion ensued — an universal shak- 
ing as after sermon in Christian churches — when 
this word was said. Followed much monosyllabic 
'discourse, also grave grunting, and a little more 
salaaming among the belated sinners. Chibouques 
were refilled, fingans freely circulated, and the re- 
sonance of satisfactory smacks clearly excited the 
wonder and env}?- of the unfavored pedlers who still 
stood along the beach. The reis of reises looked 
about him with a great deal of expectation and anx- 
iety, of which no notice was taken, until he made 
bold to suggest interrogatively, " a little something 
else?" — meaning brandy, which the Commander 
brought, and of which the reis emptied two such 
mighty measures, that if there be virtue in Cognac, 
he was undonkeyed before that hour of night when 
the serpent-magician glares glorious over Syene. 

Suddenly the congress rose. The reis of the 
cataract smiled approvingly upon the Howadji as if 
they were very pretty men, to be very prettily done 
by a grisly old mummy of an Egyptian, then sa- 
laamed, kissed his hand, and stepped ashore. When 
he was fairly landed, I sav/ the Commander assist- 
ing the confused crowd of under-scrubbery out of 



THE TREATY OF SYENE. 183 

the boat, with his kurbash or whip of hippopotamus 
hide. They all clattered out, chattering and flut< 
tering ; and tumbling on to their donkeys, one of 
the high contracting parties shambled up the beach, 
and disappeared in a cloud of dast among the 
palms. 

And the treaty of Syene was concluded. 



XXVI. 

THE CATAIUCT. 

The Ibis went up the cataract. 

In that pleasant, spacious dining-room of Shep- 
herd's, at Cairo, after billiard-exhilaration of a 
pleasant morning, men ask each other, over a 
quiet tiffin, " you went up the cataract ?" as if 
boats leaped cataracts as lovers scale silken ladders 
to their ladies. 

The Ibis, however, went up the cataract. Imagi- 
native youth will needs picture the Ibis dashing 
dexterously up a Nile Niagara, nor deem that in 
mystic Egypt is any thing impossible. Nor can 
that imagination picture scenes more exciting. 
Only now let us more sedately sail ; for stranger 
scenery than this, no man sees in long voyaging. 

Early on the morrow of the treaty, a mad rabble 
took possession of the Ibis. They came tumbling 
and pitching in, wild, and wan, and grotesque, as the 
eager ghosts that file into Charon's barque when it 
touches the Stygian shore. The captain of cap- 




THE CAt4|RACT. ISo 



tains had gone round by land to meet us at a cer- 
tain point in the rapid, but had sent a substitute to 
pilot our way until we met hinix The new rabble 
ran around the deck tumbling over each other, 
shouting, chattering, staring at the Hadji Hamed's 
kitchen arrangements, and the peculiarities of the 
Howadji — and the whole devil's row was excited 
and stirred up constantly by a sagacious superin- 
tendent with a long kurbash, who touched the re- 
fractory where cherubs are intangible, taking good 
care that the row should be constantly more riotous, 
and nothing effected but his abundant castigation. 
Our own crew were, superfluous for the nonce, and 
lay around the deck useless as the Howadji. A 
bright sun shone — a fair breeze blew, and we slipped 
quietly away from the shore of Syene. 

The Ibis rounded a rock, and all greenness and 
placid palm beauty vanished. We were on the 
outskirts of the seething struggle between the two 
powers. Narrow, and swift, and dark, and still, like 
a king flying from a terrible triumph, flowed our 
royal river. Huge hills of jagged rock impended. 
Boulders lay in the water. White sand shored the 
stream, stretching sometimes among the rocks in 
short sweeps, whose dazzling white contrasted in- 
tensely with the black barriers of rock. High on a 
rocky peak glared a shekh's white tomb, the death's- 



1S6 NILE NOTES. 

head in that feast of terrible fascination and delightv 
and smoothly sheering precipices below, gave hope 
no ledge to grasp in falling, but let it slip and slide 
inevitably into the black gulf beneath. The wreck 
of a dahabieh lay high-lifted upon the rocks in the 
water, against the base of the cliff, its sycamore 
ribs white rotting, like skeletons hung for horror 
and warning around the entrance of Castle Despair. 
All about us was rock ponderously piled, and the 
few sand strips. Every instant the combinations 
changed, so narrow was the channel, and every 
moment the scenery was more savage. 

The wind blew us well, and the sharp quick eye 
of the pilot minded well our course. Sometimes 
we swept by rocks nearly enough to touch them. 
Sometimes the doubtful Ibis seemed inevitably 
driving into a cliff, but bent away as she ap- 
proached, and ran along the dark, solemn surface 
of the river. Three miles of such sailing, then the 
cataract. 

It is a series of rocky rapids. There is no fall of 
water, only a foaming, currenty slope, as in all 
rapids. The cataract is the shock of the struggle 
between the desert and the river. The crisis an- 
nounced long since by the threatening sand-heights, 
has arrived. Through your dreamy avenue of palm- 
twilight, and silence, you have advanced to no lotus 



THE CATARACT. 187 

isles, but to a fierce and resounding battle — that 
sense of fate announced it in the still sunniness 
of the first mornings. But it seemed then only 
shadowy, even seductive in awfulness, like death to 
young imaginations. At Syene, this sunny morn- 
ing, it has become a stirring reality. Pressing in 
from Lybia and Arabia, the intervening greenness 
the insatiate overwhelmed, rocks and sands here 
grasp the shoulders of the river, and hurl their shat- 
tered crags into its bosom. 

Bleak, irregular mounds and hills, and regularly 
layered rock, rise, and slope, and threaten, all around. 
Down the steep sides of the mountains, here reach- 
ing the river, like a headlong plunge of disordered cav- 
alry, roll fragments of stone of every size and shape. 
Like serried fronts, immovable, breasting the bur- 
den of the battle, the black smooth precipices stand 
in the rushing stream. Then pile upon pile, fantas- 
tic, picturesque, strange, but never sublime, like 
foes lifted upon foes to behold the combat, the in- 
tricate forms of rock crowd along the shore. 

It is the desert's enthusiastic descent — its frenzied 
charge of death or victory. Confusion confounded, 
desolated desolation, never sublime, yet always 
solemn, with a sense of fate in the swift-rushing 
waters, that creates a sombre interest, not all un- 
human, but akin to dramatic intensity. 



188 NILE NOTES. 

The Nile, long dallying in placid Nubia, lingers 
lovingly around templed Philge — the very verge of 
the vortex. It laves the lithe flowers along its 
shore, and folds it in a beautiful embrace. It sees 
what it saw there, but what it sees no longer. Is 
its calm the trance of memory, or of love ? What 
were the Ptolemies, and their temples, and their 
lives — what those of all their predecessors there — 
but various expressions, sweet and strange, that 
flushed along the face of the Nile's idol, but fleetly 
faded ? It lingers on the very verge of the vortex, 
then, unpausing, plunges in. Foamingly furious, it 
dashes against the sharp rocks, and darts beyond 
them. Scornfully sweeping, it seethes over ambus- 
cades of jagged stone below. Through tortuous 
channels here, through wild ways there, it leads its 
lithe legion undismayed, and the demon desert is 
foiled forever. 

Then royally raging, a king with dark brows 
thoughtful, the Nile sweeps solemnly away from the 
terrible triumph ; but caresses palm-belted Syene 
as it flies, and calms itself gradually beyond, among 
serene green shores. 

The Ibis reached the first rapid. The swift rush 
of the river, and the favoring wind, held it a long 
time stationary. Had the wind lulled, she would 
have swung round suddenly with the stream, and 



THE CATARACT. 189 

plunged against the rocks that hemmed her — rocks 
watching the Ibis as inexorably as desert monsters 
their prey. 

Suddenly a score of savages leaped, shouting and 
naked, into the water, and, buffeting the rapid, 
reached a rock \Yith a rope. This they clumsily 
attached to a stump ; and the yelling savages on 
board pulled at it, and drew us slowly up. Like 
imps and demons, the black sinners clambered over 
the sharp points and along the rocks, shouting and 
plunging into the rapid, to reach another rock — at 
home as much in the black water, as out of it — 
madly dancing and deviling about; so that, survey- 
ing the mummy-swathed groups on deck, and the 
hopeless shores, and the dark devils — ^the Nile was 
the Nile no longer, but the Styx — and the Ibis, 
Charon's barque of death. The tumult was terrible. 
No one seemed to command, and the superintendent 
kept up a vigorous application of the kurbash to 
the adjacent shoulders, but without the slightest 
practical influence upon the voyage. In the hellish 
howling of the rabble, and sure swiftness and dash 
of the stream, a little silent sense had been heavenly. 
For the channels are so narrow, that it needs only 
a strong rope and a strong pull to insure the ascent. 

A few blocks, beams, and pulleys, upon points 
where a purchase is necessary, w^ould make the 



190 NILE NOTES. 

ascent rapid and easy. There are, at this point, not 
more than four or five rapids, a few yards wide each 
one, at the narrowest. Between these hell-gates, 
there is room to sail, if there be wind enough, and 
if not, the tracking, w^ith many men, is not ar- 
duous. 

The poet Martineau, and Belzoni, are at issue 
upon the " savage faculty." This mystery, of which 
the Howadji could never discover the slightest trace, 
charmed the poet Harriet particularly at this pomt. 
Belzoni says of these men, that their utmost sagacity 
reaches only to pulling a rope, or sitting on the 
extremity of a ^ever, as a counterpoise ; and he also, 
in a very un poetic fervor, declares that, in point of 
skill, they are no better than beasts. Certainly it 
would be strange if a race so ignorant and clumsy 
in all things else, should develop fine faculties here. 
These demons drew the Ibis up the rapids, as they 
would have drawn a wagon up a hill — the success 
and the lo paeans are due to the strength of the 
rope. Had the poet Harriet ever shot the sault 
Sainte Marie with a silent Indian in a birch shell, 
she might have beheld and chanted the "savage 
faculty." But this immense misdirection of the 
force of a hundred or more men, deserves no lyric. 

The Ibis was drawn through two rapids, and then 
the captain of the cataract appeared upon the 



THE CATARACT. 191 

shore, mounted on a donkey, and surrounded by a 
staiF or a council of ministers, similarly mole-eyed 
and grisly. I fancied, at first, the apparition was 
only a party of mummies donkeying along through 
the cataract, to visit some friendly Nubian mummies 
in the hills beyond. For the cataract is a kind of 
" wolf's glen," and phantoms and grotesque ghosts 
of exery kind are to be expected ; but they slid off 
their beasts, and shuffled down the sand slope to the 
shore, -and sprang aboard, helping up the most 
shriveled of mummies, who was presented to the 
Howadji as the father of the captain of the cataract ; 
and it was clearly expected by the captain and the 
crew, that that fact would be recognized in a flowing 
horn of brandy, as partly discharging the world's 
debt to old grisly, for begetting that pilot, and very 
reis of very reises — 

'' Sing George the Third, and not the least in worth, 
For graciously begetting George the Fourth." 

The brandy was served, and the Howadji stepped 
ashore to visit Philae, while the Ibis cleared the rest 
of the rapids, and met them at Mahratta, the first 
Nubian village. 



XXVII. 

NUBIAN WELCOME. 

*'BucKSHEESH HowADji — buckslieesli Howadji,' 
welcomed us to Nubia. A group of naked little 
negroes with donkeys awaited us on the bank, and 
intoned the national hymn, " alms, shopkeeper," 
as we mounted through the sand. The Howadji 
straddled the donkeys — for you do not mount a don- 
key more than you would a large dog — and, sitting 
upon a thick cloth, the steed's only trapping, and 
nothing but the Howadji's nimble management of 
his legs to keep that on, away we w^ent, helter 
skelter, over the sand — shamble, trot, canter, 
tumble, up again and ahead, jerking, and shaking 
upon the little beasts, that balanced themselves 
along, as if all four legs at once were necessary to 
support such terrible Howadji weights. 

Away we dashed, scrambling along the bank. 
The sky cloudless — burning the sun — wild the waste 
shore. Ledges of rock lay buried in the sand, and 
at the head of the cataract, its Nubian mouth, a 



NUBIAN WELCOME. 193 

palm-shaded village. Fantastically frowning every- 
where, the chaos of rock, and beyond and among, 
the river in shining armor, sinuous in the foaming 
struggle. 

It was pure desert — a few patches of green grew 
miserable in the sand, forlorn as Christian pilgrims 
in Saracen Jerusalem. The bold formlessness of 
the cliffs allured the eye. Seen from the shore, 
they are not high; but the mighty masses, irre- 
gularly strewn and heaped, crowding and concen- 
trating upon the river, shrinking along the shores, 
yet strewn in the stream, and boldly buffeting its 
fury, are fascinatingly fantastic. Your eye, so long 
used to actual silence, and a sense of stillness in the 
forms and characters of the landscape, is unnatural- 
ly excited, and bounds restlessly from rock to river, 
as if it had surprised Nature in a move, and should 
see sudden and startling changes. The Howadji has 
caught her in this outlawed corner, before her ar- 
rangements were completed. She is setting up the 
furniture of her scenery. This rock is surely to be 
shifted there, and that point to be swept away, 
here. There is intense expectation. Ah! if the 
Howadji had not travelled in vain, but should really 
see something and understand the secret significance 
of cataracts ! 

But a sudden donkey-quake wrecked all specula- 



194 NILE NOTES. 

tion, and like a tower shaken, but recovering itself 
from falling, the Howadji allowed the quake to 
*^ reel unheededly away," and alighted quietly upon 
his left leg, while the liberated donkey smelt about 
for food in the sand, like an ass. The soaring spe- 
culations of the moment upon the text of the pros- 
pect, had made the Howadji too unmindful that the 
nimble clinging of his legs to the donkey's ribs was 
the sole belly-band of his cloth, and warrant of his 
seat ; so the three went suddenly asunder, donkey, 
Howadji, and cloth, but reuniting, went forward 
again into Nubia, an uncertain whole. 

The barking of dogs announced our arrival at 
Mahratta, the first Nubian village. Dull, mud 
Syene was only three miles distant over the desert. 
Yet here mud was plaster, smooth and neat, and the 
cleanliness of the houses — a certain regular grace in 
them — the unveiled faces of the women, and their 
determined color — for they were emphatically black 
— made Nubia pleasant, at once and forever. These 
women braiding baskets, or busily spinning in the 
sun, with mild features, and soft eyes — their woolly 
hair frizzling all over their heads, and bright bits of 
metal glittering around their necks and in their 
noses and ears, were genuine Ethiopians in their 
own land. At once the Howadji felt a nobler, 
braver race. The children were gayer and healthier. 



NUBIAN WELCOME. 195 

I saw no flies feeding upon Nubian eyes. The 
Nubian houses are square, and flat-roofed, and often 
palm-thatched. Grain jars stood around them, not 
unhandsomely, and mud divans built against the 
outer walls were baked by the sun into some degree 
of comfort. We paused in a group of women and 
children, and they gave us courteously to drink. 
Then we rode on, our route reeling always between 
the rocky hills and the rocky river. 

Suddenly at high noon, at the end of a tortuous 
rocky vista, and a mile or two away, stood Philee — 
form in formlessness, measured sound in chaotic dis- 
cord. For a iTioment it was Greece visible — all 
detail was devoured by distance, which is enamored 
of general effect, and loves only the essential im- 
pression. It was a more wonderful witchery of 
that wild scenery, a rich revelation of forms as fair 
as Prospero could have built before Ferdinand's 
eyes. For the beauty and grace of Philae, so seen, 
in that stern and vivid contrast of form and feeling, 
are like the aerial architecture which shone sub- 
stantial before the Magician's eyes, as imaging the 
glory of the world — and whose delicacy sang to 
Ferdinand, when he knew not if it were " i' the air" 
or on the earth. 

Philae, so delicately drawn upon that transparent 
noon air, was an ecstacy of form. There were only 



196 



NILE NOTES. 



architraves and ranges of columns among the black 
beetling rocks. It soothed the eye ; for in chaos 
here was creation. And even broken columns, 
stately still — ranging along a river — are as pleasant 
to the eye as vrater-flov^ers. 



XXVIII. 

PHIL^. 

I WISH Philse were as lovely as the melody of its 
name imports. But I do not dare to call Isis by 
the name of Venus — or if the Palmyrene Zenobia, 
following the triumph of Aurelian, was pretty — 
then is Philae chained to the car of time, lovely. 
Poet Eliot Warburton, indeed, speaks of its " ex- 
quisite beauty." What shall the Howadji do with 
these poets ? 

Girdled with the shining Nile, Philae is an austere 
beauty — Isis-like, it sits solemn-browed, column 
crushing column, pylons yet erect, and whole sides 
of temple courts yet standing with perfect pillars — 
huge decay, wherein grandeur is yet grand. It is 
strange to see human traces so lovely in a spot so 
lonely. Strange, after the death in life of the Nile 
valley, to emerge upon life in death so imperial as 
Philae. For you remember that the Ibis did not 
pause at the temples, but beheld Thebes and Den- 
dereh, as she flew, like pictures fading on the air. 



.198 NILE NOTES. 

Seen from the shore, a band of goldenest green 
surrounds the island. The steep bank is lithe with 
lupin and flowering weeds. Palms are tangled, as 
they spring, with vines and creepers, dragon-flies 
float sparkling all over it — and being the sole verdure 
in that desolation, the shores of Phila3 are gra- 
cious as blue sky after storms. A party of naked / 
young Nubians rowed us over in a huge tub of a 
boat, which, with their bent boughs of trees for 
oars they could scarcely keep against the current. 
They had a young crocodile for toy, with which 
they played with as much delight as with a kitten. 
The infant dragon was ten days old, and about a 
foot long. It sprawled sluggishly about the bot- 
tom of the boat, as its mature relatives stretch in- 
dolently along the sandy shores, and the boys de- 
lighted to push it back with a stick as it crawled 
feebly up the side. There was no special malice 
in it at this treatment. Dragon seemed to know 
perfectly that he was born heir to a breakfast upon 
some of his tormentors, or their near relatives, and 
that the fun would be one day quite the other side 
of his mouth, into which our young friends thrust 
sticks and stones, not perceiving, the innocents ! 
that they were simply rehearsing their own fate. 
The Howadji wished to sacrifice it to Osiris as they 
stepped ashore upon his island, but reflected that it 



PHIL^. 199 

was a bad precedent to sacrifice one god to another, 
— and wound through the crhnson-eyed lupin, the 
wild bean, and a few young palms that fringe the 
island, up to the ruins. 

The surface of the island is a mass of ruin. But 
the great temple of Isis yet stands, although it is 
shattered, and a smaller Hypethral temple over- 
hangs the river. It is not inarticulate ruin, but 
while whole walls, and architraves, and column- 
ranges remain, several buildings are shattered, and 
their fallen walls are blended. 

Philas was the holy island of old Egypt. Thither 
sailed processions of higher purpose, in barques 
more gorgeous than now sail the river, and deep 
down-gazing in the moonlight Nile, the poet shall 
see the vanished splendor of a vanished race, cen- 
treing solemnly here, like priestly pomp around an 
altar. Hither, bearing gifts, came kneeling Magi, 
before they repaired to the Bethlehem manger. 
And kings, not forgotten of fame, here unkinged 
themselves before a kinglier. For the island was 
dedicate to Osiris, the great God of the Egyptians, 
who were not idolaters, as far as appears, but re- 
garded Osiris as the incarnation of the goodness of 
the unutterable God of gods. 

But it were easier for a novice to trace the temple 
lines among these ruins, than for an ordinary How- 



200 NILE NOTES. 

adji to evolve lucidity from the intricacy of the old 
Egyptian theology. And we who stroll these 
shores, pilgrims of beauty only, cannot pause to 
lose ourselves in the darkness, and ruin, and inodor- 
ous intricacy of the labyrinth, like mere explorers 
of the Pyramids. We know very little of the 
Egyptian theology, and that little is ill told. Had 
I graduated at Heliopolis, I would have reveal- 
ed to you all. But many there be, who not having 
taken degrees at Heliopolis or Memphis, do yet 
treat of these things. Books abound wherewith 
the Howadji, in his dahabieh on the Nile, or in the 
warm slippers at home, may befog his brain, and 
learn as much of the religious as of the political 
history of Egypt. 

What did the tenth king of the seventeenth dy- 
nasty for the world ? nay, why was Ramses great ? 
Ah, confess that you love to linger with Cleopatra 
more than with Isis, and adore Memnon more will- 
ingly than Amun Re ! Swart Cleopatra, superbly 
wound in Damascus silks and Persian shawls, going 
gorgeously down the Nile in a golden gondola to 
meet Marc Antony, had more refreshed my eyes 
than Sesostris returning victorious from the Gan- 
ges. Ramses may have sacrificed to Isis, as Cleo- 
patra to Venus. But in the highest heaven all di- 
vinities are equal. 



PHIL^. 201 

Isis was the daughter of Time, and the wife and 
sister of Osiris. Horus was their child, and they 
are the Trinity of Philae. Osiris and Isis finally 
judged the dead, and were the best beloved gods 
of the ancients, and best known of the moderns. 
Yet the devil Typhoo vanquished Osiris, who lies 
buried in the cataract, which henceforth will be an 
emblem to the poetic Howadji of the stern struggle 
of the good and bad Principles. And gradually, as 
he meditates upon Osiris and Egypt, and a race de- 
parted, one of the line old fancies of the elder 
Egyptians will grow into faith with him, and he 
will see in the annual overflow of the river the an- 
nual resurrection of the good Osiris to bless the 
land. Tradition buried Osiris in the cataract, and 
the solemn Egyptian oath, was '* by him who 
sleeps in Philae." Here was the great temple 
erected to his mourning widow, and sculptured 
gigantically upon the walls, the cow-horned, ever 
mild-eyed Isis, holds her Horus and deplores her 
spouse. 

Very beautiful is Isis in all Egyptian sculptures. 
Tenderly tranquil her large generous features, gra- 
cious her full-lipped mouth, divine the dignity of 
her mien. In the groups of fierce fighters and 
priests, and beasts and bird-headed gods that peo- 
ple the walls, her aspect is alwavs serene and solac- 

9- 



202 NILE NOTES. 

ing — the type of the feminine principle in the 
beast and bird chaos of the world. 

The temples are of Ptolemaic times, and, of course, 
modern for Egypt, although traces of earlier build- 
ings are still discoverable. The cartouche, or cipher 
of Cleopatra — our Cleopatra — among the many of 
Egypt, appears here. The ruins are stately and 
imposing, and one range of thirty columns yet re- 
mains. The capitals, as usual, are different flowers. 
The lotus, the acacia, and others, are wreathed 
around and among them. Desaix's inscription is 
upon the wall, with its republican date ; and that 
of Pope Gregory XVI. — the effete upon the effete. 

The Howadji wandered among the temples. The 
colored ceilings, the columned courts, the rude 
sculptures of beasts, and birds, and flowers — rude in 
execution, but in idea very lofty — the assembling 
and consecration of all nature to the rulers of nature 
— these were grand and imposing. Nor less so in 
their kind, the huge masses of stone so accurately 
carved, whereof the temples were built. For the 
first time, at Philae, we practically felt the massive- 
ness of the Egyptian architecture. These temples 
scorn and defy time, as the immovable rocks the 
river. Yet the river, and time, wear them each 
slowly — but how slowly — away. We saw the sin- 
gular strength of the buildings, and the precision 



PHILyE. 203 

of their construction, by climbing the roof, by a 
narrow staircase built in the wall of the great 
temple. The staircase emerges upon the roof, over 
the adytum, or holy of holies, with which, singular 
small apertures communicate. Conveniences for 
the gods, were these? Divine whispering-tubes? 
Private entrances of the spirit ? Scuttles for Osiris 
and the fair Isis ; or part of the stage-scenery of the 
worship, wherethrough priests whispered for gods, 
and men were cozened by men ? 

Ah ! Verde Giovane! fragments of whose pleasant 
Philae breakfast are yet visible on this roof — Time 
loves his old tale, and tells it forever over. Has 
not the Howadji seen, in Rome, the Pope, or spiritual 
papa of the world, sitting in a wooden kneeling 
figure, and playing pray under that very burning 
eye of heaven — an Italian sun, of a June noonday? 

The Arab boys crouched in their blankets in the 
sun, upon the roof, as if it were cold ; for, to the 
Egyptian, clothes are too much a luxury not to be 
carefully used, when he has any. They smoked 
their pipes carelessly, incuriously, as if they w^ere 
sculptures upon one wall, and the Howadji upon 
another. Pleasant, the sunny loitering, with no 
cicerone to disgust, lost in mild musing meditation, 
the moonlight of the mind. You will have the same 
red book, or another, when you loiter, and thence 



204 NILE NOTES. 

learn the details, and the long list of Ptolemies, and 
Euergetes, who built, and added, and amended. 
Thence, too, you will learn the translations of 
hieroglyphics — the theories, and speculations, and 
other dusty stuff inseparable from ruins. 

You will be grave at Philae, how serenly sunny 
soever the day ; but with a gravity graver than that 
of sentiment ; for it is the deadness of the death of 
the land that you will feel. The ruins will be, to 
you, the remains of the golden age of Egypt ; for 
hither came Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Herodotus, 
and Plato, and, from the teachers of Moses, learned 
the most mystic secrets of human thought. It is 
the faith of Philae that, developed in a thousand 
ways, claims our mental allegiance to-day — a faith 
transcending its teachers, as the sun the eyes which 
it enlightens. These wise men came — the wise men 
of Greece, whose wisdom was Egyptian ; and hither 
comes the mere American Howadji, and learns, but 
with a difference. He feels the greatness of a race 
departed. He recognizes that a man only differently 
featured from himself, lived and died here two 
thousand years ago. 

Ptolemy and his Cleopatra walked these terraces ; 
sought shelter from this same sun, in the shade of 
these same columns ; dreamed over the calm river, 
at sunset, by moonlight ; drained their diamond- 



PHIL^. 205 

rimmed goblet of life and love ; then, embalmed in 
sweet spices, were laid dreamless in beautiful tombs. 
Remembering these things, glide gently from Philae, 
for we shall see it no more. Slowly, slowly south- 
ward loiters the Ibis, and leaves its columned shores 
behind. Glide gently from Philae ; but it will not 
glide from you. Like a queen crowned in death, 
among her dead people, it will smile sadly through 
your memory forever. 



XXIX. 

A CROW THAT FLIES IN HEAVEN'S 
SWEETEST AIR. 

Fleetly the Ibis flew. The divine days came 
and went. Unheeded the longing sunrise, the lin- 
gering eve. Unheeded the lonely shore of Nubia, 
that swept, sakia-singing, seaward. Unheeded the 
new v^^orld of African solitude, the great realm of 
Ethiopia. Unheeded the tropic upon which, for 
the first time, we really entered ; and the pylons, 
columns, and memorial walls, that stood solitary in 
the sand. The Howadji lay ill in the blue cabin, 
and there is no beauty, no antiquity, no new world, 
to an eye diseased. 

Yet illness, said a white-haired form that sat 
shadowy by his side, hath this in it, that it smooths 
the slope to death. The world is the organization 
of vital force ; but when a man sickens, the substan- 
tial reality reels upon his brain. The cords are cut 
that held him to the ship that sails so proudly the 
seas, and he drifts lonely in the jolly-boat of his 



A CROW. 207 

own severed existence, toward shores unknown. 
Drifts, not unwillingly, as he sweeps farther away, 
and his eyes are darkened. 

After acute agony, said still the white-haired 
shadow, pausing slowly, as if he, too, w^ere once alive 
and young; death is like sleep after toil. After 
long decay, it is as natural as sunset. Yet to sit 
rose-garlanded at the feast of love and beauty, your- 
self the lover, and the most beautiful, and hearing 
that you shall depart thence in a hearse, not in a 
bridal chariot, to rise smilingly and go gracefull}'' 
away, is a rare remembrance for any man — an heroic 
death that does not often occur nor is it to be 
rashly wished. For the heroic death, is the gods' 
gift to their favorites. Who shall be presumptuous 
enough to claim that favor. Nay, if all men were 
heroes, how hard it would be to die and leave them; 
for our humanity loves heroes more than angels and 
saints. It would be the discovery of a bound- 
less California, and gold would be precious no 
more. 

The shadow was silent, and the Nubian moon- 
light crept yellow along the wall ; then, playing 
upon the Howadji's heart-strings vaguely and at 
random, as a dreaming artist touching the keys of 
an instrument, he proceeded. Yet we may all know 
how many more the dead are than the living, nor be 



208 NILE NOTES. 

afraid to join them. Here, in Egypt, it is tombs 
which are inhabited, it is the cities which are de- 
serted. The great Kamses has died, and all his 
kingdom — why not little you and I? Nor care to 
lie in a tomb so splendid. Ours shall be a sky- 
vaulted mausoleum, sculptured with the figures of 
all life. No man of mature years but has more 
friends dead than living. His friendly reunion is a 
shadowy society. Who people for him the tranquil 
twilight and the summer dawn ? In the woods we 
knew, what forms and faces do we see ? What is 
the meaning of miusic, and who are its persons ? 
What are the voices of midnight, and what words 
slide into our minds, like sudden moonlight into 
dark chambers, and apprise us that we move in the 
vast society of all worlds and all times, and that if 
the van is lost to our eyes in the dazzling dawn, and 
the rear disappears in the shadow of night our 
mother, and our comrades fall away from our sides 
— the van, and the rear, and the comrades are yet, 
and all, moving forward like the water-drops of the 
Amazon to the sea. It is not strange that when 
severe sickness comes, we are ready to die. Long 
buffeted by bleak, blue icebergs, we see at last 
with equanimity that we are sailing into Symmes's 
hole. 

The Nubian moonlight crept yellow along the 



A CROW. 209 

wall, but the monotonous speech of the white-hah'ed 
mystery went sounding on, like the faint far noise 
of the cataract below Philae 

Otherwise nature were unkind. She smooths 
the slope, because she is ever gentle. For to turn 
us out of doors suddenly and unwillingly into the 
night, were worse than a cursing father. But na- 
ture can never be as bad as man. What boots it 
that faith follows our going with a rush lantern, 
and hope totters before with a lucifer ? Shrewd, 
sad eyes have scrutinized those lights, and whis- 
pered only, " It is the dancing of will-o'-the-wisps 
among the tombs." It is only the gift of nature 
that we die well, as that we are born well. It is 
nature that unawes death to us, and makes it wel- 
come and pleasant as sleep. 

A mystery ! 

But if you say that it is the dim dream of the 
future, wrought into the reality of faith, that 
smooths deatli — then that dream and faith are the 
devices of nature, lilve these enticing sculptures 
upon tomb avenues, to lead us gently down. For I 
find that all men are cheered by this dream, although 
its figures are as the men. There are gardens and 
houris, or hunting-grounds and exhaustless deer, or 
crystal cities where white-robed pilgrims sing 
hymns forever — (howbeit after Egypt no philoso- 



210 NILE NOTES. 

phic Hovvadji will hold that long white garments 
are of heaven). 

The flickering form waved a moment in the moon- 
lisfht and resumed. 

Heaven is a hint of nature, and therein shall we 
feel how ever kind she is — opening the door of death 
into golden gloom, she points to the star that gilds 
it. She does this to all men, and in a thousand 
ways. But in all lands are seers who would mono- 
polize the seeing — Bunyan pilots, sure you will 
ground in the gloom except you embark in their 
ship, and with their treatise of navigation. Mean- 
while the earth has more years than are yet com- 
puted, and the Bunyan pilots are of the threescore 
and ten species. 

Priests and physicians agree, that at last all men 
die bravely, and we are glad to listen. O Howadji, 
that bravery was ours. We should be as brave as 
the hundred of any chance crowd, and so indirectly 
we know how we should die, even if, at some time, 
death has not looked closely at us over the shoul- 
der, and said audibly what we knew — that he held 
the fee simple of our existence. 

The Nubian moonlight Vi^aned along the wall. 
We praise our progress, said the white-haired 
shadow, yet know no more than these Egyptians 
knew. We say that we feel we are happier, and 



A CROW. 211 

that the many are wiser and better, simply because 
we are alive, and they are mummies, and life is 
warmer than death. The seeds of the world were 
sown along these shores. There is none lovelier 
than Helen, nor wiser than Plato, nor better than 
Jesus. They were children of the sun, and of an 
antiqiuty that already fades and glimmers upon ouc 
eyes. 

Venus is still the type of beauty — our philoso- 
phy is diluted Platonism — our religion is an imita- 
tion of Christ. The forms of our furniture are 
delicatel}^ designed upon the walls of Theban tombs. 
Thales, after his return from Egypt, determined the 
sun's orbit, and gave us our year. Severe study 
detects in Egyptian sculptures emblems of our 
knowledge and our skill. Have you, Howadji, 
new ideas, or only different developments of the old 
ones? As the Ibis bears you southward, are you 
proud and compassionate of your elders and your 
masters — or do you feel simply that the earth is 
round, and that if in temperate regions the homely 
lark soars and sings, in the tropics the sumptuous 
plumage of silent birds is the glittering translation 
of that song ? 

Have you mastered the mystery of death — have 
you even guessed its meaning ? Are Mount Auburn 
and Greenwood truer teachers than the Theban 



212 NILE NOTES. 

tombs ? Nature adorns death. Even sets in smiles 
the face that shall smile no more. But you group 
around it hideous associations, and of the pale 
phantom make an appalling apparition. Broken 
columns — inverted torches — weeping angels and 
willows are within the gates upon which you write, 
"Whoso believeth in me shall never die." Black- 
ness and knolling bells, weepers and hopeless scraps 
of Scripture, these are the heavy stones that we 
roll against the sepulchres in which lie those whom 
you have baptized in his name, who came to abolish 
death. 

Why should not you conspire with nature to 
keep death beautiful, nor dare, when the soul has 
soared, to dishonor, by the emblems of decay, the 
temple it has consecrated and honored. Lay it 
reverently, and pleasantly accompanied, in the 
earth, and there leave it forever, nor know of skulls 
or cross-bones. Nor shall willows weep for a tree 
that is greener — nor a broken column symbolize a 
work completed — nor inverted flame a pure fire 
ascending. Better than all, burn it with incense at 
morning — so shall the mortal ending be not un- 
worthy the soul, nor without significance of the 
soul's condition. Tears, like smiles, are of nature, 
and will not be repressed. They are sacred, and 
should fall with flowers upon the dead. But forget- 



A CROW. 213 

ting grave-yards and cemeteries, how silent and 
solemn soever, treasure the dearest dust in sacred 
urns, so holding in your homes forever those who 
have not forfeited, by death, the rights of home. 

The wan, white-haired shadow wasted in the yel- 
low moonlight. 

But all illness is not unto death. Much is rather 
like dark, stony caves of meditation by the wayside 
of life. There is no carousing there, no Kushuk 
Arnem and Ghawazee dancing, but pains as of 
corded hermits and starving ascetics. Yet the her- 
mit has dreams that the king envies. We come 
thousands of miles , to see strange lands, wonderful 
cities, and haunts of fame. But in a week's illness 
in the blue cabin or elsewhere, cities of more shin- 
ing towers and ponderous palace-ranges, lands of 
more wondrous growth and races than ever Cook 
or Columbus discovered, or the wildest dreamer 
dreamed, dawn and die along the brain. To those 
golden gates and shores sublime no palmy Nile 
conducts — not even the Euphrates or Tigris, nor 
any thousands of miles, would bring the traveller to 
that sight. Sick Sinbad, travelling only from one 
side of his bed to the other, could have told tales 
stranger and more fascinating than enchanted his 
gaping guests. 

Ah ! could we tame the fantastic genius that 



214 NILE NOTES. 

only visits us with fever for the entertainment of 
our health, we could well spare the descriptive 
poets, nor read Vathek and Hafiz any more. But 
he is untameable, until his brother of sleep, that 
good genius who gives us dreams, will consent to 
serve our waking — until stars shine at noonday — 
until palms wave along the Hudson shores. 



XXX. 

SOUTHWARD. 

The Nubians devote themselves to nudity and to 
smearing their hair with castor oil. 

At least it seems so from the river. Nor have 
they much chance to do any thing else ; for Nubia 
only exists by the grace of the desert or the persist- 
ence of the Nile in w^ell-doing. It is a narrow strip of 
green between the mountains on both sides, and the 
river. Often it is only the mere slope of the bank 
which is green. You ascend through that, pushing 
aside the flowering lupin and beans, and stand at 
the top of the bank in the desert. Often the desert 
stretches to the stream, and defies it, shoring it 
with sheer sand. A few taxed palms, a few taxed 
sakias, the ever neat little houses, the comely blacic 
race, and, walling all, the inexorable mountains, 
rocky, jagged, of volcanic outline and appearance — 
these are the few figures of the Nubian panorama. 

Dates, baskets, mats, the gum and charcoal of the 
mimosa, a little senna, and, farther south, ebony, 



216 NILE NOTES. 

sandal- wood, rice, sugar, and slaves, are all the 
articles of commerce — lupins, beans, and dhourra, a 
kind of grain, the crops of consumption. 

It is a lonely, solitary land. There are no flights 
of birds, as in Egypt ; no wide valley reaches, 
greened with golden plenty. Scarce a sail whitens 
the yellow-blue of the river. A few solitary cam- 
els and donkeys pass, spectral, upon the shore. It 
seems stiller than Egypt, where the extent of the 
crops, the frequent villages, and constant population, 
relieve the sense of death. In Nubia, it is the 
silence of intense suspense. The unyielding moun- 
tains range along so near the river, that the How- 
adji fears the final triumph of fche desert. 

Like a line of fortresses stretched against the foe, 
stand the sakias — the allies of the river. But their 
ceaseless sigh, as in Egypt, only saddens the silence. 
Through the great gate of the cataract, you enter a 
new world, south of the poet's "farthest south." 
A sad, solitary, sunny world ; but bravery and the 
manly virtues are always the dower of poor races, 
who must roughly rough it to exist. 

In appearance and character, the Nubians are the 
superiors of the Egyptians. But they are subject to 
them by the inscrutable law that submits the dark- 
er races to the whiter, the world over. The sweet- 
ness, and placidity, and fidelity, the love of country 



SOUTHWARD. 217 

and family, the simplicity of character and conduct 
which distinguish them, are not the imperial pow- 
ers of a people. Like the Savoyards into Europe, 
the Nubians go down into Egypt and fill inferior 
offices of trust. They are the most valued of ser- 
vants, but never lose their home-longing, and 
return into the strange, sultry silence of Nubia, 
when they have been successful in Egypt. 

Yet the antique Ethiopian valor survives. Divers 
districts are still warlike and the most savage strug- 
gles are not unknown. The Ethiopians once re- 
sisted the Romans, and the fame of one-eyed Queen 
Candace, whose wisdom and valor gave the name 
to her successors, yet flourishes in the land, and the 
remains of grand temples attest that the great 
Ramses and the proud Ptolemies thought it worth 
while to own it. The Nubians bear arms, but all 
of the rudest kind — crooked knives, iron-shod clubs, 
slings, and a shield of hippopotamus hide — and in 
the battles the women mingle and assist. 

Yet in the five hundred miles from Syene to 
Dongola, not more than one hundred thousand 
inhabitants are estimated. They reckon seven hun- 
dred sakias for that distance, and that each is equal 
to one thousand five hundred bushels of grain. 

These shores are the very confines of civilization. 

A 

The hum of the world has died away into stillness. 
10 



218 NILE NOTES. 

The sun shines brightly in Nubia. The sky is blue, 
but the sadness of the land rests like a shadow upon 
the Howadji. It is like civilization dying decently. 
The few huts and the few people, smile and look 
contented. They come down to the shore, as the 
Ibis skims along, wonderingly and trustfully as the 
soft-souled southern savages beheld, with curiosity, 
Columbus' fleet. They are naked and carry clubs, 
and beg powder and arms, but sit quietly by your 
side as you sketch or sit upon the shore, or run like 
hunting-dogs for the pigeons you have shot. If 
there be any impossible shot, the Howadji is called 
upon with perfect confidence to execute it ; for a 
clothed Howadji with a gun is a denizen of a loftier 
sphere to the nude Nubians. Why does the sun 
so spoil its children and fondle their souls away? 
How neat are their homes, like houses set in order! 
For the mighty desert frowns behind, and the crush- 
ing government frowns below\ Yet the placid 
Nubian looks from his taxed sakia to his taxed 
palms, sees the sand and the tax-gatherer stealing 
upon his substance, and quietly smiles, as if his land 
were a lush-vineyarded Rhine-bank. 

The Howadji had left the little, feline reis at 
Syene, his home ; for the indolent Nubian blood was 
mingled in his veins, and made him seem always 
this quiet land personified. The Ibis flew, piloted 



SOUTHWARD. 219 

by a native Nubian, who knew the river through 
his country. For here the shores are stony, and 
there are two difficult passages, which the natives 
call half-cataracts. 

Hassan was a bright-eyed, quiet personage, who 
discharged his functions very humbly, sitting with 
the Ancient Mariner at the helm, who seemed, grisly , 
Egyptian, half jealous of his Nubian colleague, and 
contemptuously remarked, when we reached Philae, 
returning, that no man need go twice to know the 
river. The men were uneasy at the absence of 
their head, nor liked to be directed by the Nubian, 
or the Ancient Mariner ; but Hassan sang with them 
such scraps of Arabic song as he knew, and regaled 
them with pure Nubian melodies, which are sweeter 
than those of Egypt, for the Nubians are much more 
musical than their neighbors, and in a crew, they 
are the best and most exhilarating singers. He sat 
patiently on the prow for hours, watching the river, 
calling at times to Grisly to turn this way and 
that, and Hassan was uniformly genial and gentle, 
pulling an occasional oar, returning. 

For the rest he was clothed in coarse, white cot 
ton, haunted the kitchen after dinner, and fared 
sumptuously every day. Then begged tobacco of 
the Howadji, and smoked it as serenely as if it were 
decently gotten. 



?20 NILE NOTES. 

At Kdlabsheh we passed the Tropic of Cancer. 
But are not the tropics the synonym of Paradise? 
The tropics, mused the Howadji, and instantly 
imagination was entangled in an Indian jungle, and 
there struggled, fettered in glorious foliage, mistak- 
ing the stripes and eyes of a royal Bengal tiger for 
the most gorgeous of tropical flowers. But escap- 
ing thence, imagination fluttered and fell, and a 
panorama of stony hills, a cloudless, luminous sky, 
but bare in brilliance, enlivened by no clouds, by 
no far-darting troops of birds — a narrow strip of 
green shore — silence, solitude, and sadness, revealed 
to the Howadji the dream-land of the tropics. 

Yet there was a sunny spell in that land and 
scenery which held me then, and holds charmed my 
memory now. It was a sleep — we seemed to live 
it and breathe it, as the sun in Egypt. There was 
luminous languor in the air, as from opiate flowers, 
yet with only their slumber, and none of their fra- 
grance. It seemed a failure of creation, or a cre- 
ation not yet completed. Nature slept and dreamed 
over her work, and whoso saw her sleep, dreamed 
vaguely her dreams. 

Puck-piloted and girdling the earth in an hour, 
would not the Howadji feel that only a minute's 
journey of that hour was through the ripe maturity 
of creation — the rest embryo — half conceived or 



SOUTHWARD. 221 

hopeless ? " The world" is only the fine focus of all 
the life of the world at any period ; but, Gun- 
ning in blue spectacles, picking gingerbread nuts 
off the Dom palm, how small is that focus ! 

One Nubian day only was truly tropical. It was 
near Derr, the chief town, and the azure calm and 
brilliance of the atmosphere forced imagination to 
grow glorious gardens upon the shores, and to crown 
with forests, vine-waving, bloom-brilliant, the moun- 
tains, desert no longer, but divine as the vision-seen 
hill of prophets ; and to lead triumphal trains of 
white elephants, bearing the forms and costumes of 
Eastern romance, and giraffes, and the priestly 
pomp of India, through the groves of many-natured 
palms that fringed the foreground of the picture. 
It was summer and sunshine — a very lotus day. 

I felt the warm breath of the morning streaming 
over the Ibis, like radiance from opening eyes, even 
before the lids of the dawn were lifted. Then came 
the sun over the Arabian mountains, and the waves 
danced daintily in the rosy air, and the shores sloped 
serenely, and the river sang and gurgled against the 
prow, whereon sat the white-turbaned, happy Has- 
san, placidly smoking, and self-involved, as if he 
heard all the white Nile secrets, and those of the 
mountains of the moon. The Ibis spread her white 
wings to the warm wooing wind, and ran over the 



222 NILE NOTES. 

water. Was she not well called Ibis, with her long, 
sharp wings, loved of the breeze, that toys with 
them as she flies, and fills them to fulhiess with 
speed ? 

The sky was cloudless and burningly rosy. To 
what devote the delicious day? What dream so 
dear, what book so choice, that it would satisfy the 
spell? Luxury of doubt and long delay! Such 
wonder itself was luxury — it rippled the mind with 
excitement, delicately as the w^ind kissed the stream 
into wavelets. Yet the Howadji looked along the 
shelves and the book was found, and in the hot 
heart of noon, he had drifted far into the dreamy 
depths of Herman Melville's Mardi. Lost in the 
rich romance of Pacific reverie, he felt all around 
him the radiant rustling of Yillah's hair, but could 
not own that Polynesian peace was profounder than 
his own Nubian silence. 

Mardi is unrhymed poetry, but rhythmical and 
unmeasured. Of a low, lapping cadence is the swell 
of those sentences, like the dip of the sun-stilled. 
Pacific waves. In more serious moods, they have 
the grave music of Bacon's Essays. Yet who but an 
American could have written them? And essen- 
tially American are they, although not singing 
Niagara or the Indians. 

Romance or reality, asked, dazed in doubt, bewil- 



SOUTHWARD. 223 

dered Broadway and approving Pall Mall. Both, 
erudite metropolitans, and you, ye of the warm 
slippers. The Howadji is no seaman, yet can he 
dream the possible dreams of the mariner in the 
main-top of the becalmed or trade- wind- wafted Pa- 
cific whaler. In those musings, mingles rare reality, 
though it be romantically edged, as those palms of 
Ibreem, seen through the glass, are framed in won- 
drous gold and purple. — 

On, on, deeper into the Pacific calm, farther into 
that Southern spell ! The day was divine — the 
hush, the dazzle, the supremacy of light, were the 
atmosphere of the tropics, and if, toward evening, 
and for days after, the anxious North blustered in 
after her children, she could never steal that day 
from their memories. The apple was bitten. The 
Howadji had tasted the equator. 



XXXI. 

ULTIMA THULE. 

We sought the South no longer. Far flown 
already into a silent land, the Ibis finally furled 
her wings at Aboo Simbel. But far and ever farther 
southward, over the still river-reaches, pressed pierc- 
ing thought, nor paused at Khartoum where the 
Nile divides, nor lingered until lost in the mountains 
of the moon. Are they sarcastically named, those 
mountains, or prophetically, that when they are 
explored, the real moon ranges shall be determined ? 

Up through the ruins of the eldest land and the 
eldest race came two children of the youngest, and 
stood gazing southward into silence. Southward 
into the childishness of races forever in their dotage 
or never to grow — toward the Dinkas and the shores 
loved of the lotus, where they worship trees, and 
pull out the incisors for beauty, and where a three- 
legged stool is a king's throne. 

The South ! our synonym of love, beauty, and a 
wide world unrealized. Lotus fragrance blows out- 
ward from that name, and steeps us in blissful dreams 



ULTIMA THULE. 225 

that bubble audibly in song from poets' lips. It is 
the realm of faery-fantasy and perfected passion. 
Dark, deep eyes gushing radiance in rapt summer 
noons, are the South, visible and bewildering to the 
imagination of the North. Whoso sails southward 
is a happy mariner, and we fancy his ship gliding 
forever across tranced sapphire seas, reeking with 
rarest odors, steeped in sunshine and silence,, waft- 
ed by winds that faint with sweet and balm against 
the silken sails ; for the South has no wood for us 
but sandal, and ebony, and cedar, and no stuffs but 
silks and cloth of gold. 

Sumptuous is the South — a Syren singing us ever 
forward to a bliss never reached; but with each 
mile won she makes the pursuit more passionate, 
brimming the cup that only feeds the thirst, with 
delicious draughts that taste divine. Then some 
love-drunken poet beholds her as a person, and 
bursts into song — 

" I muse, as a tranince, whene'er 

The languors of thy love-deep eyes 
Float on to me. I would I were 

So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies — 
To stand apart and to adore, 
Gazing on thee for evermore — 
Serene, imperial Eleanore." 

The morning was bright when the Ibis stopped at 

Aboo Simbel. Nero presently arrived, and the blue 
10* 



226 NILE NOTES. 

pennant passed, flying forward to Wady Haifa and 
the second cataract. After a brief delay and a pleas- 
ant call, Nero stretched into the stream, and the 
Italian tricolor floated off southward, and disap- 
peared. The Ibis was left alone at the shore. Over 
it rose abruptly a bold, picturesque rock, which, of 
all the two hundred miles between the cataracts, is 
the natural site for a rock temple. 

A grand goal is Aboo Simbel for the long Nile 
voyage, and the more striking that it is approached 
from Cairo, through long ranges of white plaster 
mosques, and minarets, and square mud pigeon- 
houses — the highest architectural attempt of mod- 
ern Egyptian genius on the Nile. The Howadji is 
ushered by dwarfs into the presence of a God. The 
long four weeks' flight of the Ibis through such a 
race and works to this temple goal, is the sad, severe 
criticism of time upon himself and his own changes. 
For although time is wise, and buries, where he 
can, his past from his future, yet here is something 
mightier than he ; and the azure of the sky which he 
cannot tarnish, preserves the valorous deeds of his 
youth freshly and fair to his unwilling age. Vainly 
he strives to bury the proofs and works of his early 
genius — vainly in remote Nubia he calls upon the 
desert to hide them, that young England and young 
America may flatter their fond conceits, that now 



ULTIMA THULE. 227 

for the first time man fairly lives, and human genius 
plays. Some wandering Belzoni thwarts his plans — 
foils the desert, and on the first of August, 1817, 
with Mr. Beechy, and Captains Irby and Mangles, 
pushes his way into " the finest and most extensive 
excavation in Nubia" — thinks it " very large" at 
first, and gradually his '* astonishment increased," 
as he finds it to be " one of the most magnificent of 
temples, enriched with beautiful intaglios — paint- 
ing — colossal figures, etc.," which etc. is precisely 
the inexpressible grandeur of Aboo Simbel. For he 
who has not flown up the Nile, must begin his-trav- 
els again, if he wbuld behold ruins. Standing at 
Aboo Simbel, and looking southward, Greece and 
Rome are toys of yesterday, and vapors wreathing 
away. When once the Egyptian temples are seen, 
they alone occupy the land, and suggest their own 
priests and people. The hovels of the present race 
are as ant-hills at their gates. Their prominency 
and importance cannot be conceived from the 
value and interest of other ruins. Here at Aboo 
Simbel the Howadji, after potential potations and 
much meditation, is inclined to bless the desert ; 
for he feels that in Egypt it is the ally of art, and 
the friend of modern times. 

The Howadji entered now upon a course of tem- 
ples. The Ibis pointed her prow northward, and 



228 NILE NOTES. 

sight-seeing commenced. Yet on these pages 
remains slight detail of what she saw as she 
threaded homeward that wonderful wilderness of 
ruin. Not a diary of details, but slightest sketches 
of impression, w^ere found at Cairo under her wing. 

This day at Aboo Simbel, while the first officer, 
Seyd, superintended the taking down of the masts 
and sails and the arrangement of the huge oars — 
for Ave v/ere to float and row northward, when the 
wind would allow — and while the Hadji Hamed 
and his kitchen were removed to the extreme prow, 
to make room for the rowers on the middle deck, 
the Howadji climbed the steep sand-bank to the 
temples of Aboo Simbel. 

The smaller one is nearest the river, and is an ex- 
cavation in the solid rock, with six sculptured fig- 
ures on the fagade. Two of these are Athor, the 
Egyptian Venus, to whom the temple was consecrate. 
She had beautiful names, and of delicate significance, 
as the Lady of the West, because she received the 
setting sun — the Night, not primeval darkness, but 
the mellow tropical night, breathing coolness and 
balm. Athor's emblems are so like those of Isis, 
that the two deities are often confounded. She was 
the latter Aphrodite of the Greeks, to whom they 
built the Dendereh temple ; and, like Isis, is cow- 
horned and mild-eyed, with a disk between the 



ULTIMA TIIULE. 229 

horns. Athor was a gracious and gentle goddess, 
and properly was her temple encountered here, far 
in the gracious and gentle South, whose sweetness 
and languor were personified in the tender tranquil- 
lity of her mien. 

But beyond and higher, is the great temple of 
Aboo Simbel, in front of which sit four Colossi, 
figures of Ramses the Great. Their grandeur and 
beauty are beyond expression, and the delight in 
their lofty character of beauty quite consumes the 
natural wonder at their uninjured duration for 
twenty or thirty centuries. Yet in Egypt, the 
mind gradually acquires a sense of permanence in 
the forms that meet the eye. Permanence is the 
spirit of the climate, and of the simplicity of the 
landscape, and of the supreme silence. What is 
built at the present time, is evidently so transitory 
in its construction and character, yet lasts so long, 
that the reasons of the fact of duration are clear to 
your mind before wonder is awakened. The dry, 
warm air is the spell, and as it feeds your lungs and, 
life, it breathes into your mind its most significant 
secrets. 

In these faces of Ramses, seven feet long, is a 
godlike grandeur and beauty, which the Greeks 
never reached. They are not only colossal blocks 
of stone, but the mind cannot escape the feeling 



230 NILE NOTES. 

that they were conceived by colossal minds. Such, 
only, cherish the idea of repose so profound ; for 
there is no type or standard in nature for works 
like these, except the comparative character of the 
real expression of real heroes, and more than heroes. 
If a poet should enter in dreams the sacred groves 
of the grandest mythology, these are the forms he 
would expect to see, breathing grandeur and godly 
grace. They sit facing the south-east, and as if 
necessarily expectant of the world's homage. There 
is a sweetness beyond smiling in the rounded, placid 
mouth. The nose is arched, the almond-eye volup- 
tuously lidded, as the lips are rounded, and the still- 
ness of their beauty is steeped in a placid passion, 
that seems passionlessness, and which was necessa- 
rily inseparable from the works of southern artists. 
It is a new type of beauty, not recalling or suggest- 
ing any other. It is alone in sculpture, serene and 
godlike. Greek Jupiter is grand and terrible, but 
human. The Jupiter of any statue, even the To- 
nans or the Olympian, might have showered in 
gold upon Danae, or folded lo in the embracing 
cloud, or have toved with fond, foolish Semele till 
his fire consumed her. The Greek gods are human. 
But these elder figures are above humanity — they 
dwell serenely in abstract perfection. 

In their mystic beauty all this appears. And the 



ULTIMA THULE. 231 

American Howadji wonders to find this superhu- 
man character projected into such expression. The 
face of one of these Aboo Simbel figures teaches 
more of elder Egypt than any hieroglyphed history 
which any Old Mortality may dig out, in the same 
way that the literature of Greece and the character 
of Greek art reveal the point of development 
reached by the Greek nature, which, standing as a 
world-student at Aboo Simbel, is the point of in- 
terest to the Howadji. Strangely they sit there, 
and. have sat, the beautiful bloom of eternal youth 
and the beautiful balance of serene wisdom in their 
faces, with no trace there of the possibility of human 
emotion ; and so they sit and benignly smile through 
the Howadji's mind forever, as the most triumphant 
realization in art of the abstract perfection of con- 
scious being. 

After which consolatory conclusion, that, with 
the resounding tongues of the figures, the Howadji 
would be glad to thunder chorally to the world, he 
descends the sand-slope into the interior of the 
temple ; for the sand has so filled it, that although 
the entrance is some thirty feet high, he must stoop 
to enter. The day was waning, and the great hall 
was dark. The present Howadji was yet weak 
with the illness which the white-haired phantom 
watched, and remained with Congo upon the sand- 



232 NILE NOTES. 

slope, looking into the temple, as the light wood 
was kindled in a portable-crate, to illuminate' the 
interior. But the Pacha penetrated two hundred 
feet to the adytum. He passed the Osiride col- 
umns, which are a grand feature of the early tem- 
ples, being statues with placid features and arms 
folded upon their breast, cut upon the face of 
square pillars, and reached the four sitting figures 
in the adytum — a separate interior niche and holy 
of holies — figures of the gods to whom the temple 
was dedicate. Chiefly Aboo Simbel was dedicate 
to Ra, the sun ; also to Kneph, Osiris, and Isis, by 
Ramses the Great. Upon all the walls are sculp- 
tures of his victories ; his offerings to the Gods, and 
religious rites. These walls are blackened now 
by smoke, and each fresh party of Howadji, with 
its fresh portable crate of light wood, cannot avoid 
smoking its share of the temple. 

The sun was setting as the Howadji emerged, and 
looked their last upon the placid Gods, whose grace 
made the twilight tender. They slid slowly down 
the sand to the shore, and reached the poor, dis- 
mantled Ibis. Fleet, fair Ibis no longer — the masts 
were down and were stretched over the deck, like 
ridgepoles, for an awning, and the smoke of kara 
kooseh ascended from the prow, and the sharp, 
lithe yards pierced the blue no more. The glory 



ULTIMA THULE. 233 

was gone, and the beauty. It was an Ibis no 
longer ; but a " loggy old junk, a lumpish gunde- 
low," said the sententious Pacha. 

The golden-sleeved commander received us, tak- 
ing credit for all that had been done ; and as the 
stars triumphed over the brief twilight, the crew, 
with a slow, mournful song, pushed away from the 
shore, and we headed southward no longer. There 
was a sadness in that starlight beyond any other 
upon the Nile. The Howadji had reached their 
southest south, and the charm of exploration was 
over. Return is always sad ; for return is unnatural. 
Ever forward, ever farther, is the law of life ; and 
the outward seems not to keep pace with the in- 
ward, even if it does not seem to dwarf and defraud 
it, when we return to the same places and the old 
pursuits. As the South receded in the starlight, 
that silent evening, a duty and a right seemed to 
be slipping away — the Howadji were turning the 
farthest point of dreaming, their Cape of Good 
Hope, beyond which slept their Indian seas, and 
drifted again with the mystic stream slowly out of 
the past toward the insatiable future. 

The moon rose and hung golden over Arabia, 
as the sad, monotonous song of the crew trembled 
and died away ; and with its slow, measured 
throb the Howadji's hearts beat homeward. 



XXXII. 

NORTHWARD. 

We floated and rowed slowly down the river. 
When the wind blew violently the crew did not row 
at all, and we took our chance at floating, spinning 
round upon the river, and drifting from shore to shore. 
When it swelled to a gale, we drew in under the 
bank and allowed its fury to pass. Once, for two days 
it held us fast, and the irate Howadji could do nothing 
but await the pleasure of a lull. But the gale out- 
lasted their patience. They had explored all the 
neighboring shore, had seen the women vnth glass 
beads, and necklaces, and black woollen garments, 
and crisp woolly hair. They had sat upon the mud 
seats of the houses, and had been the idols of popular 
attention and admiration. But the wind would not 
blow away, and the too happy crew stretched upon 
the bank, and shielded by it, slept and chatted all 
day long. The third day, the gale still blew, though 
feebly, and orders for tracking were issued from the 
blue cabin. There was great reluctance, for it is hard 



NORTHWARD. 235 

work to pull a Junk or Gundelow against a wind. 
And as the supple-limbed, smooth-skinned Moham- 
mad, one of the best workers of the crew, undertook, 
standing on the shore among the rest, who did not 
dare to speak, to expostulate and complain, the Pa- 
cha, in a royal rage, was about springing upon him 
for tremendous chastisement, when Mohammed, 
warned by his fellows, sprang up the bank and dis- 
appeared. The rest, appalled and abashed, seized 
the rope and went to work. We tracked but a few 
miles that day, however, for it was too heavy work. 

The wind died at last, but it was never as peace- 
able as it should' have been. For although the 
hopeful ascending Howadji hears that with January 
or February the soft southern gales begin to blow, 
and will waft him as gently northward as the north 
winds blew him south, he finds that those southern 
gales blow only in poetry, or poetic memory. 

In the calmer pauses, however, we tracked and 
rowed, and drifted to Dekkar, and a yellow, vaporous 
moon led us to the temple. Seyd accompanied 
the Howadji with the portable crate, wherewith 
they were to do their share of smoking the remains. 
All Nubia was asleep in the yellow moonlight, 
and the inhabitants of Dekkar rushed forth from 
their huts as we passed along, the huge Seyd pre- 
ceding, bearing the crate like a trophy, and snarling 



236 NILE NOTES. 

at all curs that shivered the hushed silence with 
their shrieks. Doubtless, as we approached the 
temple, and the glare of our torches flashed through 
its darkness, meditative jackals and other beasts of 
prey withdrew to the more friendly dark of distance. 
And then, if ever, standing in the bright moonlight 
among Egyptian ruins, the apostrophes, and senti- 
mentalities, and extravagancies, of Volney and his 
brood, flap duskily through the mind like birds of 
omen ill. 

There is something essentially cheerful, however, 
in an Egyptian ruin. It stands so boldly bare in 
the sun and moon, its forms are so massive and pre- 
cise, its sculptures so simply outlined, and of such 
serene objectivity of expression, and time deals so 
gently with the ruin's self, as if reluctant, through 
love or fear, to obliterate it, or even to hang it with 
flowery weepers and green mosses, that your feeling 
shares the freshness of the ruin, and you reserve for 
the Coliseum or the Parthenon that luxury of soft 
sentiment, of which Childe Harold's apostrophe to 
Rome is the excellent expression. We must add to 
this, too, the entire separation from our sympathy, 
of the people and principles that originated these 
structures. The Romans are our friends and neigh- 
bors in time, for they lived only yesterday. History 
sees clearly to the other side of Rome, and beholds 



NORTHWARD. 237 

the campagiia and the mountains, before the wolf 
was whelped, that mothered a world. But along 
these shores history sees not much more than we 
can see. It cannot look within the hundred gates of 
Thebes, and babbles very inarticulately about what 
it professes to know. We have a vague feeling 
that this was the eldest born of Time — certainly, 
his most accomplished and wisest child, and that the 
best of our knowledge is a flower off that trunk. 
But that is not enough to bring us near to it. The 
Colossi sit speechless, but do not look as if they 
would speak our language, even were their tongues 
loosed. Theirs is another beauty, another feeling 
than ours, and except to passionless study and uni- 
versal cosmopolitan interest, Egypt has only the 
magnetism of mystery for us, until the later days of 
its decline. 

Our human interest enters Egypt with Alex- 
ander the Great and the Greeks, and becomes vivid 
and redly warm with the Romans and Cleopatra, 
with Caesar and Marc Antony, with Hadrian and 
Antinous. The rest are phantoms and spectres that 
haunt the shores. Therefore, there are two inter- 
ests and two kinds of remains in Egypt, the Pharaoh- 
nic and the Ptolemaic — the former represents the 
eldest and the latter the youngest, history of the 
land. The elder is the genuine old Egyptian inter 



238 NILE NOTES. 

est, the younger the Greco-Egyptian — after the con- 
quest — after the glorious son had returned to engraft 
his own development upon the glorious sire. It 
was the tree in flower, transplanted. No Howadji 
denies that the seed was Egyptian, but poet Marti- 
neau perpetually reviles the Greeks for their auda- 
city in coming to Egypt, can with difticulty contain 
her dissatisfaction at pausing to see the Ptolemaic 
remains, finds that word sufficient description and 
condemnation. But the Greeks, notwithstanding, 
rarely spoiled anything they touched, and here in 
Egypt, they inoculated massiveness with grace, and 
grandeur with beauty. Of course there was always 
something lost. An Egyptian temple built by 
Greek-taught natives, or by Greeks w^ho wished to 
compromise a thousand jealousies and prejudices, 
must, like all other architecture, be emblematical 
of the spirit of the time and of the people. Yet in 
gaining grace the Howadji is not disposed to think 
that Egyptian architecture lost much of its grand- 
eur. The rock temples, the oldest Egyptian remains, 
have all the imposing interest of the might and char- 
acter of primitive races grandly developing in art. 
But as the art advances to separate structures, and 
slowly casts away a crust of crudities, although it 
may lose in solid weight, it gains in every other 
way. 



NOKTHWARD. 239 

Then the perfection of any art is always unobtru- 
sive. Yes, in a sense, unimpressive, as the most 
exquisite of summer days so breathes bahn into a 
vigorous and healthy body, that the individual exists 
without corporeal consciousness, yet is then most 
corporeally perfect. In the same way disproportion 
arrests the attention. Beautiful balance, which is 
the character of perfection in art or human charac- 
ter or nature, allows no prominent points. Wash- 
ington is undoubtedly always underrated in our 
judgments, because he was so well-proportioned; 
and the finest musical performance has such natural 
ease and quiet, and the colors and treatment of a 
fine picture such propriety and harmony, that we do 
not at once know how fine it is. It is the cutting 
of a razor so sharply edged that we are not conscious 
of it. We have all seen the same thing in beautiful 
faces. The most permanent and profound beauty 
did not thrill us, but presently, like air to the lungs, 
it was a necessity of inner life, while the striking 
beauty is generally a disproportion, and so far a 
monstrosity and fault. Men who feel beauty most 
profoundly, are often unable to recall the color of 
eyes and hair, unless, as with artists, there is an in- 
voluntary technical attention to those points. For 
beauty is a radiance that cannot be analyzed, and 
which is not described when you call it rosy. Want- 



240 NILE NOTES. 

ing any word which shall express it, is not the high- 
est beauty the synonym of balance, for the highest 
thought is God, and he is passionlessly balanced in 
our conception. 

This is singularly true in architecture. The Greek 
nature was the most purely proportioned of any 
that we know — and this beautiful balance breathes 
its character through all Greek art. The Greeks 
were as much the masters of their world, physically, 
and infinitely more, intellectually, than the Romans 
were of theirs. And it is suspected that the Greek 
element blending with the Saxon, makes us the men 
we are. Yet the single Roman always appears in 
our imaginations as stronger, because more stalwart, 
than the Greek — and the elder Egyptian architecture 
seems grander, because heavier, than the Grecian. 
It is a kind of material deception — the triumph of 
gross sense. It is the old story of Richard and 
Saladin. 

The grace of the Greek character, both humanly 
and artistically, was not a want of strength, but it 
was exquisite balance. Grace in character as in 
movement, is the last delicate flower, the most 
bloomy bloom. The grandeur of mountain outlines 
— their poetic sentiment — the exquisite hues that 
flush along their sides, are not truly known until 
you have so related them to the whole landscape, by 



NORTH WAED. 241 

separating yourself from them, that this balance can 
appear. While you climb the mountain, and behold 
one detail swift swallowing another — although the 
abysses are grand, and the dead trunks titanic, and 
the single flower exquisite, yet the mass has no form 
and no hue, and only the details have character. 

Beauty is reached in the same way in art. If parts 
are exaggerated, striking impressions may be pro- 
duced, but the best beauty is lost. The early Egyp- 
tian architecture is exaggeratedly heavy. The whole 
art, in its feeling and form, seems to symbolize 
foundation — as if it were to bear all the finer and 
farther architectures' of the world upon itself. It is 
massive, and heavy, and permanent, but not graceful. 
The beholder brings away this ponderous impression 
— nothing seems massive to him after Egypt, as no- 
thing seems clean after a Shaker village, and if upon 
the shore something lighter and more graceful arrest 
his eye, he is sure that it is a decadence of art. For 
so impressively put is this massiveness of structure, 
that it seems the only rule, and he will hear of no 
others — as a man returning from a discourse of one 
idea, eloquently and fervidly set forth, believes in 
that, mainly, until he hears another fervid argu- 
ment. 

But the Greeks achieved something loftier. They 

harmonized strength into beauty, and therein secured 
11 



242 NILE NOTES. 

the highest success of art — the beautifying of use. 
Nothing in nature is purely ornamental, and there- 
fore nothing in art has a right to be. G-reek archi- 
tecture sacrifices none of the strength of the Egyp- 
tian, if we may trust the most careful and accurate 
engravings, but elevates it. It is the proper super- 
structure of that foundation. It is aerial, and light, 
and delicate. Probably, on the v^hole, a Greek 
temple charms the eye more than any other single 
object of art. It is serene and beautiful. The grace 
of the sky and of the landscape would seem to have 
been perpetually present in the artist's mind who 
designed it. This architecture has also the smiling 
simplicity, which is the characteristic of all youth, 
— while the African has a kind of dumb, ante-living, 
ante-sunlight character, like that of an embryo 
Titan. 

When the Greeks came to Egypt, they brought 
Greece with them, and the last living traces of an- 
tique Egypt began to disappear. They even changed 
the names of cities, and meddled with the theology, 
and in art the Greek genius was soon evident — yet, 
as blending and beautifying, not destroying — and 
the Ptolemaic temples, while they have not lost the 
massive grandeur of the Pharaohnic, have gained a 
greater grace. A finer feeling is apparent in them 
— a lighter and more genial touch — a lyrical senti- 



NORTHWARD. L'43 

merit, which does not appear in the dumb old epics 
of Aboo Simbel, and of Gerf Hoseyn. They have 
an air of flowers, and freshness, and human feeling. 
They are sculptured with the same angular heroes, 
and gods, and victims, but, while these are not so 
well done as in the elder temples, and indicate that 
the Egyptians themselves were degenerate in the 
art, or that the Greeks who attained the same re- 
sult of mural commemoration in a loftier manner 
at home, did it clumsily in Egypt- — the general eifect 
and character of the temples are much more beautiful 
to the eye. , The curious details begin to yield to 
the complete whole, a gayer, more cultivated, far- 
ther advanced, race has entered and occupied. 

The Howadji will check himself here, as he 
stumbles over a fallen hieroglyphed column in the 
moonlight. But this temple of Dekkar was a pro- 
per place to say so much for the abused temples of 
Ptolemaic times ; for this is a building of Ergamun, 
an Ethiopian prince, and a neighbor of Ptolemy 
Philadelphus, who had seen Greece, and learned a 
little wisdom, and made a stand in a temple, 
probably on this very site, against the ignorant 
tyranny of priests, not supposing, as Sir Gardner 
aptly remarks, " that belief in the priests signified 
belief in the- gods, whom he failed not to honor 
with due respect." 



244 NILE NOTES. 

Sir Gardner quotes the story from Diodorus, that 
** the most extraordinary thing is what relates to 
the death of their kings. The priests, who superin- 
tend the worship of the Gods, and the ceremonies 
of religion, in Meroe, enjoy such unlimited power, 
that, whenever they choose, they send a messenger 
to the king, ordering him to die, for that the gods 
had given this command, and no mortal could op- 
pose their will, without being guilty of a crime. 
They also add other reasons, which would influence 
a man of weak mind, accustomed to give way to 
old custom and prejudice, and without sufficient 
sense to oppose such unreasonable commands. In 
former times the kings had obeyed the priests, not 
by compulsion, but out of mere superstition, until 
Ergamenes, who ascended the throne of Ethiopia, 
in the time of the second Ptolemy, a man instructed 
in the sciences and philosophy of Greece, was .bold 
enough to defy their orders. And, having made a 
resolution worthy of a prince, he repaired with his 
troops to a fortress, or high place, where a golden 
temple of the Ethiopians stood, and there having 
slain all the priests, he abolished the ancient cus- 
tom, and substituted other institutions, according 
to his own will." 

We may thank Greece possibly for that. Yet, that 
we may enjoy the satisfaction of making ourselves 



1 

I 



NORTHWARD. 245 

contemporary with such histories, let us refer to 
Frederic Werne's White Nile, and discover that races, 
neighbors of our tree- worshipping friends, the Din- 
kas, if not sometimes our very friends themselves, 
continue this habit, and allow the priests to notify 
the kings to die. As yet has arisen no Dinka Er- 
gamun. But such always do arise — some Ergamun, 
or Luther, or Strauss, and protest with blood or 
books against the priests, although tree-worshipping 
Dinkas, who enthrone their king on a three-legged 
stool may plead the South, and so stand absolved 
from this duty. 

Muse a moment longer in these moonlight ruins, 
and, observing brave king Ergamun hieroglyphed 
(say the learned) " king of men, the hand of Amun, 
the living, chosen of Re, son of the sun, Ergamun 
ever-living, the beloved of Isis," let the faint figures 
of those elders pass by and perceive that you honor 
them, though you do think the Greek Architecture 
more beatiful. The glare of Seyd's torch reveals 
upon these walls figures and a faith that are not less 
dear to the Howadji, as history, than any other. 
But the forms fade in the misty moonlight, as their 
names are fading out of history. Perhaps, after all, 
Mehemet Ali was as good and glorious as Ramses 
the Great, whom the Greeks called Sesostris, or any 
of the Thothmes. 



246 NILE NOTES. 

Who knows ? — perhaps they were. 

Harriet Martineau, indeed, and the other poetical 
Howadji, are inclined to doubt whether there were 
any wry necks, or squint-eyes in those days of 
giants, and you cannot say yea, or nay, for the 
great darkness. 

Who knows ? — perhaps there were not. 

Great they clearly were, for they built these tem- 
ples, and graved the walls with their own glory. 
But they have the advantage of the dark, while 
Mehemet Ali and Julius Caesar stand in the 
broad daylight, with all their wrinkles. Besides, 
when men have been dead a few thousand years, if 
their names escape to us across the great gulf 
of Time, it is only decent to take them in and en- 
tertain them kindly; especially is it becoming to 
those Howadji, who sail their river along the shores 
they so ponderously piled with grandeur. 

But the Ptolemies, also — Luxor, Dendereh, 
Edfoo, Kum Ombos, Philag, and the temples at 
Karnak — these are part of Egypt. O poetic and 
antiquity-adoring Howadji, this jealousy of the 
Greeks is sadly unpoetic. Look at this little Dek- 
kar temple, and confess it. Remember Philae, and 
ask forgiveness. Why love the Ptolemies less, be- 
cause you love the Pharaohs more '? Spite of Volney 
and this Nubian moonlight, itself a rich reward of 



NORTHWARD. 247 

long voyaging, the Howadji will not be sad and 
solemn about the Egyptians, because they were a 
great people, and are gone. The Greeks had a 
much finer architecture, and a much more graceful 
nature — they were not so old as these. But there 
were elder than the Egyptians, and wiser, and fairer, 
even the sons of the morning ; for heaven lies around 
the world in its infancy, as well as around us. 

The Howadji left the little temple to the moon- 
light and the jackals. The village was startled from 
sleep again by our return, and the crew were sleep- 
ing upon the deck ; but in a few moments there was 
no more noise, and' the junk was floating down in the 
moonlight, while its choicer freight was clouded in 
the azure mist of Latakia, and heard only the sakias 
and the throbbing oars, and, at times, the wild, 
Satanic rowing-song of the men, which Satan Sal eh 
led with his diabolical quaver and cry. 

Yet when another day had burnt away, the same 
moonlight showed us Kalab-sheh, the largest Nubian 
ruin. It is directly upon the tropic, which makes 
it pleasant to the imagination, but is a mass of un- 
interesting rubbish of Roman days. For the How- 
adji will not plead for Roman remains in Egypt, 
which have no more character than Roman art else- 
where ; and Roman art in Baalbec, in Egypt, and 
in Italy, is only Grecian art thickened from poetry 



248 NILE NOTES. 

into prose. It is one vast imitation, and the 
essential character is forever lost. But close by is 
a small rock temple of the " golden prime" of 
Ramses the Great, and passing the animated sculp- 
tures, and entering, the Howadji stands between 
two Doric columns. They are fluted, and except 
that they are low, like foundation columns, have all 
the grace of the Greek Doric. These columns 
occur once more near Minyeh, in Egypt, at the 
caves or tombs of Beni Hassan, and are there quite 
as perfect as in any Grecian temple. In this moon- 
light, upon the very tropic, that fact looms very 
significantly upon the Howadji's mind. But how 
can he indulge speculation, or reach conclusions, 
while Saleh who bears the torch-crate is perpetually 
drawing his attention to the walls, on which are 
sculptured processions bearing offerings to great 
Ramses, who built this temple, and who seems to 
have done every thing else in Egypt until the Ptole- 
mies came? There are rings and bags of gold, 
leopard-skins, ostrich-eggs, huge fans, and beasts, 
lions, gazelles, oxen, then plants and skins. A his- 
torical sketch occupies another wall — the great 
Ramses, represented as three times the size of his 
foes, pursuing them into perdition. There is a little 
touch of a wounded man taken home by his com- 
rades, while a child runs to " announce the sad 



NORTHWARD. 249 

news to its mother," pathetically says Sir Gardner, 
speaking of sculptures that, to the Howadji's eye, 
have no more human interest, or tenderness, or 
variety of expression, than the chance forms of 
clouds or foliage. 

But the Nubian days were ending, and the great 
gate of the cataract was already audible, roaring as 
it turned. Hassan piloted us safely through the 
half-cataracts ; and the fantastic rock-vistas about 
Philae were already around us. Beautiful in the 
mild morning stood the holy island, full of fairy- 
figures that came and went, and looked, and lingered 
— Ariel-beauties among the Caliban grotesqueness 
of the pass. It was the vision of a moment only, 
scarcely more distinct than in memory, and the next 
we were pausing at Mahratta, where the reis of 
the cataract, by the terms of the treaty, was bound 

to pilot the boat back again to Syene. 
11* 



XXXIII. 

BY THE GRACE OF GOD- 

It was a bright, sparkling morning, and all the 
people of Mahratta seemed to be grouped upon the 
shore to receive, with staring wonder, the boat that 
had undergone in itself the Pythagorean metempsy- 
chosis taught by the old teachers at neighboring 
Philae — the boat that had flown southward a wide- 
winged Ibis, and floated slowly back again a cum- 
brous junk — a swift bird no longer, but a heavy bug 
rather, sprawling upon the water with the long 
clumsy oars for its legs. There were two or three 
slave-boats at Mahratta — although we had passed 
scarce a sail in lonely Nubia. The brisk, busy shore 
was like awaking again after a long sleep — yet, 
believe me, it was only as one seems to awake in 
dreams. For the spell was not dissolved at Mah- 
ratta — nor yet at Cairo — and if at Beyrout to the 
eye, yet it still thralls the mind and memory. 

The captain of the cataract was absent, piloting 
an English Howadji through the rapids ; but his 



BY THE GRACE OF GOD. 251 

lieutenant and substitute, one of the minor captains, 
and our former friend of the kurbash, were grinning 
gaily as we drove smoothly up to the bank — the 
latter touching up a dusky neighbor occasionally 
with his instrument, in the exuberance of his de- 
lighted expectation of incessant kurbashing for a 
brace of hours, on our way to Syene. The motley 
crowd tumbled aboard. As at Syene, our own 
crew became luxuriously superfluous — for a morning 
they were as indolent as the Howadji, and tasted, 
for that brief space, the delight which was perpetual 
in the blue cabin. For it is a sorrow and shame to 
do any thing upon the Nile or in Egypt but float, 
fascinated, and let the landscape be your mind and 
imagination, full of poetic forms. An Egyptian 
always works as if he were on the point of pausing, 
and regarded labor as an unlovely incident of the 
day. The only natural position of an Eastern is 
sitting or reclining. But these Nile sailors sit upon 
their haunches, or inelegantly squat like the vases 
that stand in the tombs, and with as much sense of 
life as they. The moment a man becomes inactive 
upon the shore, he is enchanted into a permanent 
figure of the landscape. The silence enchants him, 
and makes his repose so profound and lifeless, that 
it deepens the impression of silence. But the dusky 
denizens of Mahratta leaped and scrambled upon the 



252 NILE NOTES. 

boat, like impatient souls very dubious of safe ferry- 
age ;' for returning to the cataract confusion, we 
return to our old similitudes. Silence, too, shud- 
dered, as they rushed yelping upon the junk, as if 
its very soul had gone out of it forever : and piling 
themselves upon the deck and the bulwarks, and 
seizing the huge, cumbrous oars, they commenced, 
under brisk kurbashing, to push from the shore, 
quarrelling and shouting, and mad with glee and 
excitement, in entire insanity of the " savage 
faculty." 

The Howadji stood at the blue cabin door, help- 
less — perhaps hopeless, in the grim chaos, and 
turning backward, as the boat slid from the shore 
upon the glassy stream, beheld Nubia and the far- 
ther South faint away upon the rosy bosom of the 
morning. 

The day was beautiful and windless — the air clear 
and brilliant. No wind could have benefited us, so 
tortuous is the channel through these rapids ; and, 
once fairly into the midst of the river, its strong, 
swift stream, eddying toward the cataract, swept us 
on to the frowning battlements of rock that rise 
along the rapid. The oars dipped slightly — but 
another power than theirs, an impetus from that be- 
witched fountain, in the most glorious glen of the 
mountains of the moon, shoved us on — the speed, 



BY THE GRACE OF GOD. 253 

the nearing rapid, the exhilarating morning, making 
this the most exciting day of the Nile voyaging. 
The men, tugging by threes and fours at the oars, 
laughed, and looked at the Howadji — their backs 
turned to the rapid, and mainly intent upon the kur- 
bash which was frenziedly fulfilling its functions. 
The pilot, whose eyes were fixed fast and firmly 
upon the rock points and the boat's prow, shouted 
them suddenly into silence at times, but only for a 
moment — then again, like eager, fun-overflowing 
boys, they prattled and played away. 

In twenty minutes from Mahratta, we were close 
upon the first, and longest, and swiftest rapid. The 
channel was partly cut away by Mehemet Ali, 
and although it conceals no rocks, it is so very nar- 
row, and shows such ragged, jagged clifF-sides to the 
stream, that with a large dahabieh like ours, driving 
through the gurgling, foaming, and fateful dark 
waters, it is a bit of adventure and experience to 
have passed. 

The instant that the strange speed with which we 
swept along, indicated that the junk was sliding 
down the horizontal cataract, and the dahabieh, and 
Howadji, and crew felt as chips look, plunging over 
water-falls, resistless, and entirely mastered, driving 
dreadfully forward, like a tempest-tortured ship — 
that moment, the pilot thundered caution from the 



254 NILE NOTES. 

tiller, and a confused scrambling ensued upon deck 
to take in the oars, for it was not possible for us to 
pass with such wide-stretching arms through the 
narrow throat of the rapid. But there was no in- 
stant to lose. The river, like a live monster, plunged 
along with us upon his back. We, too, felt his 
eager motions under us — a swiftness of smooth un- 
dulation along which we rode ; and so startling was 
the new, sudden speed, when we were once on the 
currenty slope, that it seemed as if our monster 
were dashing on to plunge us wrecked against the 
bristling sides, before we could take in our arm-like 
oars, that, rigid with horrible expectation, reached 
stiffly out toward their destruction. 

But vainly struggled and stumbled the " savage 
faculty." It was clear enough that the junk was 
Fate's, and Fate's only. At the same instant, the 
Howadji saw and felt that before one reluctant oar, 
which was tied and tangled inextricably, could be 
hauled in, its blade would strike a rocky reach that 
stretched forth for it into the stream, which foamed 
and fretted at the momentary obstruction, then 
madly eddied forward. But, in striking the rock, 
the oar w^ould throw the boat wdth its broadside to 
the stream, capsize it, and send Howadji, crew, and 
Mahratta savages beyond kurbashing. 

They saw this at the same instant, and the whole 



BY THE GRACE OF GOD. 255 

boat's company saw it too, and the pilot, who 
shouted like one mad, yet who was fixed fast to his 
post, for a single swerve of the rudder would be as 
fatal as the oar against the rock. The kurbash 
raged, and fell, and flourished, as if it foresaw the 
speedy end of its exercise and authority, and burned 
to use up all its vitality. But the mental chaos of 
the men of Mahratta was only more chaotic in this 
juncture ; and while the oar still stretched to its 
fate, and like a mote upon a lightning flash, the 
frightfully-steady boat darted through the rapid, the 
Pacha grasped one column of the cabin porch, and 
the other Howadji the other, awaiting the crisis 
which should throw them into the jaws of the 
monster, who would dash them high up upon the 
shore below, to consume at leisure. 

All this was seen and transpired in less time than 
you occupy in reading the record. The pilot in vain 
endeavored to ease her from the side toward which 
she was tending, and on which still and hopelessly 
stretched the fatal oar. There was universal silence 
and expectation, and then crash ! struck the oar 
against the rock — was completely shivered in strik- 
ing, and the heavy junk, shuddering a moment, but 
scarce consciously, and not swerving from her des- 
perate way, darted forward still, and drove high 
upon the sandy shore, at the sudden turning of the 



256 NILE NOTES. 

rapid, and the Howadji had safely passed the most 
appalling slope of the cataract. 

Chaos came again immediately. The pilot de- 
scended from his post, and expressed his opinion 
that such accurate and able pilotage deserved an 
extraordinary bucksheesh, implying, with ethics not 
alone oriental, that having done his duty, he was en- 
titled to more than praise. The men of Mahratta 
smiled significantly at the Howadji, as if such re- 
markable exertions as theirs were possibly hardly to 
be measured by merely infidel minds ; and there 
was a general air of self-satisfaction pervading all 
faces, as if the savage faculty, and not the grace of 
God, had brought us through the cataract. 

We tarried a little while upon the shore, and then 
glided again down the swift stream. It was only 
swift now, not startling, and the rockiness was far- 
ther withdrawn, and there were smooth reaches of 
water. We saw several Howadji loitering upon a 
sandy slope. The sun seemed not to sparkle, as be- 
fore the descent, in the excitement of the morning, 
and there was the same old sunny tranquillity of 
Egypt breathing over the dying rages, and up 
through the rocky ways of the cataract. It was the 
lull and repose that follow intense excitement, and 
of so suggestive a character, that the Howadji re- 
called with sympathy the aerial aquarelle of Turner 



BY THE GRACE OP GOD. S57 

— the summit of the Gotthard pass, looking toward 
Italy. It is a wonderful success of art ; for in the 
warmth, and depth, and variety of the hue, which 
has the infinite rarity and delicacy of Italian air, and 
which seems rather a glow and rosy suffusion than 
a material medium — in that, and through that, the 
bloom of Italy breathes warm beauty far into Switz- 
erland, and steeps the spectator in the South. The 
eye clings to it, and bathes in ifc as the soul and 
memory in Italian days. So in the tender tranquil- 
lity of that morning succeeding the rapids, all the 
golden greenness and sweet silence of Egypt below 
Syene, breathed beauty and balm over what was the 
Ibis. How few things are singly beautiful ! Is 
there any single beauty ? For all beauty seems to 
adorn itself with all other beauty, and while the 
lover's mistress is only herself, she has all the beauty 
of all beautiful womeny/ 

Thus with songs singing in their minds, came the 
Howadji swiftly to Syene. The current bore us 
graciously along, like the genii that serve gracefully 
when once their pride and rage is conquered. The 
struggle and crisis of the morning only bound us 
more nearly to the river. O blue-spectacled Gun- 
ning ! the dream-languor of our river is not passion- 
less sloth, but the profundity of passion. And I 
pray Athor, the queen of the West, and the lady 



258 NILE NOTES. 

of lovers, that so may be charactered the many 
winding courses of your life. 

But Verde Giovane and Gunning had flown 
northward toward Thebes, leaving only miraculous 
memories of a dejeuner at Phil«, upon men's minds 
in Syene, and strange relics of bones and fruit- skins 
upon the temple ruins. Beaming elderly John 
Bull was also flown, and with him Mrs. Bull, doubt- 
lessly still insisting that the kaftan was a night- 
gown. And Wines and the Irish Doctor who 
plunged into the Nile mysteiy at Alexandria, were 
also gone. They were all off toward Thebes. But 
Nero was still deep in Nubia, solemnly cursing con- 
trary winds, while Nera, quietly reposing in the 
sumptuous little cabin, shed the lovely light of a 
new thought of woman like a delicate dawn upon 
the dusky mental night of the " Kid's" crew. Far 
under Aboo Simbel, too, fluttered the blue pennant, 
still streaming backward to the south, whither it 
had pointed. The English consul's dahabieh — a 
floating palace of delights — was at Syene, and the 
leisure barque of an artist, whose pencil, long dip- 
ped in the sunshine of the East, will one day magic- 
ally evoke for us the great dream of the Nile. 
But we lingered long enough only to buy some 
bread, and as the full moon goldened the palm fringe 
of the river, the little feline reis, happy to be in 



BY THE GRACE OF GOD. 259 

command once more, thrummed the long silent tara- 
buka, and with clapping hands and long, lingering, 
sonorous singing, the boat drifted slowly down the 
river. 



XXXIV. 

FLAMINGOES. 

While the Ibis flies no longer, but floats, a junk, 
and for the Howadji has forever furled her wings, 
they step ashore as the boat glides idly along, and 
run up among the mud cabins and the palm-groves. 
They were always the same thing, like the lay- 
figure of an artist, which he drapes and disguises, 
and makes exhaustlessly beautiful with color and 
form. So the day, with varying lights and diflering 
settings of the same relief, made endless picture of 
the old material. You are astonished that you do 
not find the Nile monotonous. Palms, shores, and 
hills, hills, shores, and palms, and ever the old pic- 
turesqueness of costume, yet fresh and beautiful 
every day, as the moon every month, and the stars 
each evening. This is not to be explained by nov- 
elty, but by the essential beauty of the objects. 
Those objects are shapeless mud huts for instance, 
Reverend Dr. Duck, voyaging upon the Nile with 
Mrs. Duck for the balm of the African breath, and 



FLAMINGOES. 261 

finding the scenery sadly monotonous. But birds 
cannot sing until the pie is opened, Doctor, nor 
can eyes see, until all films are removed. Yet 
stretching your head a little upward, as we sit upon 
this grass clump on the high bank of the river, you 
shall see something that will make Egypt always 
memorable to you. For, as we sat there one morn- 
ing, we saw a dark, undulating mass upon the edge 
of the fog bank that was slowly rolling northward 
away. I thought it a flight of pigeons, but the 
Pacha said that it did not move like pigeons. 

The mass, now evidently a flight of birds, came 
sweeping southward toward us, high in the blue air, 
and veering from side to side like a ship in tacking. 
With every sunward sweep, their snow-white bodies 
shone like a shower of most silver stars, or rather, 
to compare large things with small, if Bacchus will 
forgive, they floated suspended in the blue air like 
flakes of silver, as the gold flakes hang in a vessel 
of eau de Dantzic, 

There was a graceful, careless order in their fly- 
ing, and as they turned from side to side, the long 
lines undulated in musical motion. I have never 
seen movement so delicious to the eye as their turn- 
ing sweep. The long line throbbed and palpitated 
as if an electric sympathy were emitted from the 
pure points of their wings. There was nothing 



262 NILE NOTES. 

tumbling or gay in their impression, but an intense 
feeling of languid life. Their curves and move- 
ments were voluptuous. The southern sun flashed 
not in vain along their snowiness, nor vrere they, 
vrithout meaning, flying to the south. There vras 
no sound but the whirring of innumerable wings, 
as they passed high over our heads, a living cloud 
between us and the sun. Now it was a streaming 
whiteness in the blue, now it was as mellowly dark, 
as they turned to or from the sun, and so advanced, 
the long lines giving and trembling sometimes, like 
a flapping sail ia a falling breeze, then bellying 
roundly out again, as if the wind had risen. When 
they were directly above us, one only note was 
dropped from some thoughtful flamingo, to call at- 
tention to the presence of strangers below. But 
beyond musket-shot, even if not beyond fear, as 
they undoubtedly were, the fair company swept on 
unheeding — a beautiful boon for the south, and 
laden with what strange tidings from northern 
woods ! The bodies were rosy white and the wings 
black, and the character of their flight imparted an 
air of delicacy and grace to all association with the 
birds, so that it is natural and pleasant to find that 
Roman Apicius, the Epicurean, is recorded to have 
discovered the exquisite relish of the flamingo's 
tongue, and a peculiar mode of dressing it. The 



FLAMINGOES. 263 

Howadji had not been unwilling at dinner to have 
tasted the delicate tongue that shed the one note of 
warning. But long before dinner the whir of beau- 
tiful wings, and the rose-cloud of flamingoes had 
died away deep into the south. 

The poor, unwinged Ibis claimed no kindred 
as the birds flew by, but clung quietly to the shore. 
The sun, too, in setting — well, is it not strange that 
in the radiant purple of sunset and dawn — the fel- 
lahs, denizens of these melancholy mud cabins, 
behold the promise of the plague ? What sympa- 
thy have we with those who see a plague-spot in 
the stately splendor of these sunsets ? 

Day by day, as we descended, we were enjoying 
the feast which we had but rehearsed in ascending. 
Edfoo, Kum Ombos, El Kab — names of note and 
marks of memory. Men dwell in tombs still, and 
came out to offer us all kinds of trinkets and gay 
wares. Then, upon dog-like donkeys we rode with 
feet dangling on the ground, across the green plain 
of the valley to the Arabian desert, whose line is as 
distinctly and straightly marked along the green, as 
the sea line along the shore. The cultivated plain 
does not gradually die away through deeper and 
more sandy barrenness into the desert, but it strikes 
it with a shock, and ends suddenly ; and the wide- 
waving corn and yellow cotton grow on the edge 



2G4 NILE NOTES. 

of the sand, like a hedge. The Howadji, embarked 
in his little cockle-boat of a donkey, puts out to 
desert as little boats to sea, and scrambling up the 
steep sand-sides of the first hills, sees upon the 
grotto-walls of El Kab much of the cotemporary 
history of the life and manners of antique Egypt. 
The details of social customs and the habits of indi- 
vidual life are painted upon the walls, so that the 
peculiar profession of the occupant of the tomb can 
be easily determined. But let us cling to the sun- 
shine as long as possible ; for we shall explore tombs 
and darkness enough at Thebes. 



XXXV. 

CLEOPATRA. 

*•' Ant. Most sweet Queen." 

A VOLUPTUOUS morning awakened the Howadji 
under the shore at Erment. Cloudless the sky as 
Cleopatra's eyes, when they looked on Cassar. 
Warmly rosy the azure that domed the world, as if 
to-day it were a temple dedicate to beauty. And, 
stepping ashore, to the altars of beauty we repaired. 
No sacrificial, snowy lambs, no garlands of gorgeous 
flowers, did the worship require. The day itself 
was flower, and feast, and triumphal song. The day 
itself lingered luminously along the far mountain 
ranges, paling in brilliance, and over the golden 
green of the spacious plain, that was a flower-enam- 
eled pavement this morning, for our treading, as if 
unceasingly to remind us that we went as worship- 
pers of beauty only, and the fame of beauty that fills 
the w^orld. 

The Howadji confesses that no Egyptian morning 

is more memorable to him than this ; for nothing 
12 



266 :nmle notes. 

Egyptian is so cognate to our warm-blooded human 
sympathy as the rich romance of Cleopatra and her Ro- 
man lovers. After the austere impression of the great 
Egyptian monuments, this simply human and lovely 
association was greatly fascinating. Ramses to-day 
was not great. He subdued Babylon ; but Cleopatra 
conquered Julius Caesar. Marc Antony called his 
Cleopatra-children, kings of kings. The conqueror 
of the conqueror was the divinity of the day. 

I know not if it were the magic of the morning, 
but the world to-day was Cleopatra. Hers was the 
spirit of the air, the lines of the landscape. In any 
land, the same day would have suggested her perpe- 
tually to the imagination ; for there are Greek and 
Roman days, Italian and Sicilian, Syrian and Afri- 
can. And these days correspond in character with 
the suggestion they make. Many and many a day 
had the How^adji seen and loved the serpent of 
old Nile, before he beheld Africa ; many a long 
June day had been tranced in Italy in the 
Fornarina's spell, many a twilight had lingered 
along Gralilean heights with him to whom the 
Syrens of the Syrian sky, Love, and Pleasure, and 
Ambition, sang in vain, and that long before he had 
trodden the broad silent way of waters, that leads 
the Western to them, and which keeps them forever 
cool and consecrate in his imagination. These 



CLEOPATRA. 267 

dreams, or realities of feeling, were not occasioned 
by pictures or poems, but were the sentiment of the 
day. The soul seems then sensuously to appre- 
hend the intensity of emotion that is symbolized. 
And when you travel into the lands of which you 
read and dreamed, you will be touched with your 
want of surprise in their delights. But many an 
unheeded silent strain of sunshine, or night-appall- 
ing tempest, had sung and thundered their sacred 
secret to your mind. The day, therefore, was so 
much Cleopatra, that only the fairest fate could 
have drifted us upon that morning to the shore of 
Erment. 

The forms and hues of old Egypt were vague and 
pale, in the presence of this modern remembrance. 
I confess that the erudite Sir Gardner, and the 
poet Martineau, do not very lovingly linger around 
Erment. I confess their facts. The temple is of 
the very last genuine Egyptian days, the child of the 
dotage of Egyptian art, when it was diseased and 
corrupted by Roman prostitution. The antique 
grandeur is gone. It is the remains of an interreg- 
num between the old and the new — the faint death- 
struggle of an expiring art, or, if the insatiable poets 
demand, a galvanized quiver after death. All that, 
if the erudite and the antiquarian require. Here ia 
no architectural, no theological or mystical — roman- 



268 NILE NOTES. 

tically historical, and very dubiously moral (after 
the Bunyan standard) interest. This is the hiero- 
glyph that might balk Champollion, yet which the 
merest American Howadji might read as he ran. 

For, what boots it ! Is not Cleopatra a radiant, 
the only radiant image, in our Egyptian annals? 
Are w^e humanly related to Menmophth, or any 
Amunoph ? Are not the periods of history epically 
poetic, that treat of her ; while they grope and 
reel seeking Thothmes and Amun in the dark? 
Besides, Cleopatra sat glorious in beauty upon 
Ramses's throne ; and the older thrones are, the 
more venerable are they. And if the great darling 
of Amun Re heroically held his heritage, grant that 
the child of Venus well lost it, melting the pearl of 
her inheritance in the glowing wine of her love. 

Neocesar should have been a god's darling, and 
so have died young. And that he might have been, 
but for the whim of nature, who will not give the 
fairest blossoms to the noblest trees. As if she 
were a housewife upon allowance, and had not 
illimitable capacity of mating beauty with power, 
wherever they meet. But, in this temple of Er- 
ment, we will not reproach her. For nature satis- 
fied the ideal, in giving Cleopatra to Caesar. 

Such, I suppose to have been the ox-necked 
Abdallah's musings, as he stumbled up the steep 



CLEOPATKA. 269 

bank from the junk, bearing the torch-crate; for all 
Egyptian temples require great light to be thrown 
upon the interior darkness of their adyta, or holy 
of holies ; and skeptical Howadji suspect that the 
dog-faithful Abdallah did it more satisfactorily than 
the priests, who, ex-officio, were the intellectual 
lanterns of old Egypt. 

Sundry shapeless heaps of dingy blanket, strewn 
upon the wind-sheltered, sun-flooded bank, were 
the crew. They had diligently rowed all night, 
and had crept ashore to sleep. They, too, had reason 
to bless the " most sweet Queen," and we left them 
honoring the day and its divinity, in their own way. 

The picture of that morning is permanent. Like 
all Egyptian pictures, composed of a few grand 
outlines, a few graceful details ; but charged, brim- 
ming, transfigured with light, and, brooding over 
all, the profound repose of the azure sky — which 
does not seem to be an arch, so much as to rest rosily 
upon the very eye — and so transparent, that the 
vision is not bluffed against a blue dome, but sinks 
and sinks into all degrees of distance, like Undine's 
in her native watery atmosphere. It would not 
surprise the happy eye, if forms, invisible in other 
qualities of atmosphere, should float and fade in the 
rosiness. Such delicate depths imply a creation as 
fair ; and as the eye swims leisurely along, the 



270 NILE NOTES. 

Howadji feels thnt it is only the grossness of his 
seeing that hides the loveliness from his apprehen- 
sion, and yet feeling the fascination, he believes that 
somewhere under the palms- upon these shores, flow 
the fountains whose water shall wash away all 
blindness. And if anywhere, why not here ? Here, 
where she, the Queen of the South not less than her 
sister of Sheba, lived and loved. For the Persian 
poets sing well, in the moonlight, that only the 
eyes of love see angels. Yet, until that fountain 
is reached, this sky is the dream, the landscape its 
light-limned realm, and at Erment, near Esne, neai 
Cleopatra, who but the gracious and graceful Gha- 
wazee are the people of those dreams ? 

The Pacha, with the cherished one-barrel, went 
before, occasionally damaging the symmetry of 
family circles of pigeons upon the palms. Abdallah 
plunged like a mastiff after the fallen victims, and 
bore them grinningly in his hand ; while I sedately 
closed the rear, dazed in the double radiance of the 
day and the Golden-sleeve. Our path lay across 
a prairie of young grain. The un waving level 
stretched away to the Libyan mountains, that still 
ranged along the west, silver-pale in the intense 
sunlight. And still as we went, this glad morning, 
the world was flower-paven, and walled with sap- 
phire. The plain seemed to shrink from the least 



CLEOPATRA. 271 

unevenness, lesfc the nourishing Nile should not 
everywhere overspread it — or, was it that it would 
lay a floor broad and beautiful enough to approach 
those ruined altars of beauty ? 

For they are ruins ; and although it is a temple 
built by Cleopatra for the worship of Amun, upon 
its altars now no other homage is offered than to 
her. Gorgeous cactuses, and crimson-hearted roses, 
and glowing, abundant oleanders, be your flower- 
offerings when you bend before them at high, hot 
noon, and pour out no other libations there, than 
reddest and most delirious wine. 

The great temple is quite destroyed, and the 
remains of the smaller one, like all the temples of 
Egypt, are quarries of materials for the building 
of the neighboring mud villages and chance factories 
which Mehemet AH commenced, and which will 
probably gradually fall into disuse and decay, now 
that he is gone. The temple is but a group of 
columns with the walls of a court, and two interior 
chambers, upon which are sculptures representing 
Cleopatra and Neocesar, with godly titles, offering 
homage and gifts to the gods. The few remaining 
columns rise handsomely from the sand and dust- 
heaps, that surround all temples here. They are 
evidently of the latest Ptolemaic days ; but to the 
uninitiated in architectural accuracy — to those who 



272 N I L E N () T E S . 

can also enjoy what is not absolutely perfect in its 
kind, but even very imperfect — these groups are 
yet graceful and pleasing. How can stately sculp- 
tures, bearing forms so famous, be otherwise, in a 
mud and sand wilderness? The sculptures them- 
selves are poor, and fast crumbling. Yet, although 
fast crumbling, here is the only authentic portrait 
of Cleopatra. This is she of whom Enotarbus said, 
in words that shall outlive these sculptures, and 
give her to a later age than anything material may 
attain — 

"Age can not Avither her — nor custom stale 
Her infinite variety. Other women 
Cloy the appetites they feed — but Bhe makes hungry 
Where most she satisfies. For vilest things 
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests 
Bless her when she is riggish." 

The Persian poets sing, farther, when the moon 
is at the full, that only lovers' tongues speak truly. 

You will not expect to find a perfect portrait 
upon these walls, and will see her sitting and hold- 
ing Neocesar in her lap, as Isis holds Horus at Philae 
— while she offers gifts to the bull Basis. And 
although this temple was covered all over with the 
rudely-sculptured form and face of the fairest queen 
of history, I could find but two which were tolera- 
bly perfect and individual. 



CLEOPATRA. 273 

The first is -upon one of the columns .of the trans- 
verse colonnade of the portico. The features are 
quite small. The nose, which seems strongly to 
mark the likeness, departs from all known laws of 
nasal perfection, and curves the wrong way. O, 
Isis — and 0, Athor, Greek Aphrodite, if Cleopatra 
had a pug nose ! Yet it is more pug than aquiline, 
or Grecian — a seemingly melancholy occurrence in 
a face so famously fair. 

But I found that this peculiarity of feature, by its 
very discord with the canons of beauty, suggested 
the soul that must have so radiantly illuminated the 
face into its bewildering beauty. Greek statues are 
not the semblance of lovable women. The faces 
are fair, but far away from feeling. The features are 
exquisitely carved, and the graceful balance is mu- 
sical to the eye. But they lack the play of passion 
— the heat-lightning of sentiment and soul that 
flushes along a thousand faces not so fair. The ex- 
pression partakes of the quality of the material, and 
differs from life as that from flesh. Beautiful are the 
fomis and faces, but they are carved in cold, color- 
less marble — not in rosy flesh. It is the outline of 
the Venus form, not her face, that is fascinating. 
Among Greek sculptures, no face is so permanently 
beautiful as the head of Clytie — and that because it 

is so charged with the possibility of human experi- 
12* 



274 NILE NOTES. 

once. The others do not seem serenely superior 
to that experience, like the Egyptian Colossi, but 
simply soulless. The beautiful story of Clytie is felt 
through her face. For when Apollo deserted lier for 
Leucothoe, she revealed his love to the father of her 
rival. But Apollo only despised her the more, and 
the sad Clytie drooped and died into the heliotrope, 
or sun-flower, still forever turning toward the sun. 
Nor less fair the fate of her rival, who was buried 
alive by her father ; and love-lorn Apollo, unable 
to save her, sprinkled nectar and ambrosia upon her 
grave, which reached her body, and changed it into 
a beautiful tree, that bears the frankincense. How 
well sound these stories at Erment, while we remem- 
ber Cleopatra, and look upon her likeness ! 

The very departure from the ordinary laws of 
sculptured beauty only suggests that loftier and 
more alluring, where the soul suffuses the features. 
And this being ever the most intimate and profound 
beauty, the queenly charm spread from the face as 
we looked, and permeated the whole person. Cleo- 
patra stands in imagination now, not a beautiful 
brunette merely, but a mysteriously fascinating wo- 
man. *' My serpent of old Nile," was a truth of 
the lover's tongue. 

Roman and man as Julius CaBsar was, he was too 
much a Roman and a man to have been thrall to 



CLEOPATRA. 275 

prettiness merely. There must have been a glo- 
rious greed of passion in an Italian nature like his 
and Marc Antony's, which only the very soul of 
southern voluptuousness could have so satisfied and 
enchained. Nor allow any western feeling to mar 
the magnificence of the picture which this place 
and day, set with those figures, offer to your de- 
light. Let us please imagination with these stately 
figures of history. Granting all the immoralities and 
improprieties, if they seem such to you, let them go, 
as not pertinent to the occasion. But the grace, and 
the beauty, and the power, the sun behind his spots, 
are the large inheritance of all time. Why should 
we insist upon having all the inconvenience of co- 
temporaries, whose feet were pinched and sides 
squeezed by these so regal figures? Why should 
we encase ourselves triply and triply in a close ball 
of petty prejudices and enlightened ideas, and go 
tumbling, beetle-like, through the moonlighted halls 
of history, instead of floating upon butterfly-wings, 
and with the song and soaring of the lark ? The 
Howadji will use his advantage of distance, and not 
see the snakes and sharp stones which he knows are 
upon the mountains, but only the graceful grandeur 
of the outline against the sky. 

Education is apt to spoil the poetry of travel by 
so starting us in the dry ruts of prejudice, or even 



276 NILE NOTES. 

upon the turnpike of principle, that we can scarcely 
ever see the most alluring landscape except at right 
angles, and doubtfully, and hurriedl}^ over our shoul- 
ders. Yet if Cleopatra had done so, would the 
Howadji have tarried atErment? The great per- 
sons and events that notch time in passing, do so 
because nature gave them such an excessive and 
exaggerated hiipulse, that wherever they touch they 
leave their mark ; and that intense humanity secures 
human sympathy beyond the most beautiful balance, 
which, indeed, the angels love, and which we are 
learning to appreciate. 

For what is the use of being a modern, with the 
privilege of tasting every new day as it ripens, if we 
can not leave in the vaults of antiquity what we 
choose ? Was Alexander less the Great because he 
had a wry neck? Leave the wry neck behind. 
You may bring forth all the botches of the stone- 
cutters, if you will, but mine be the glorious booty 
of the Laocoon, of the Venus, and the Apollo. I 
shall not, therefore, say that the artist who wrought 
works so fair, did not botch elsewhere. But I cer- 
tainly shall not inquire. 

In like manner Julius Caesar and Queen Cleopatra 
being of no farther influence upon human aifairs, 
imagination sucks from history all the sweet of their 
story, and builds honey-hives nectarean. The How- 



CLEOPATRA. 277 

adji fears that the clerical imagination at Erment 
might not do so — that all the reform and universal 
peace societies would miss the Cleopatra charm. But 
their vocation is riot wandering around the world 
and being awakened by voluptuous mornings. Their 
honey is hived from May-flowers of rhetoric in the 
tabernacle, to which the zealous and *' panoplied in 
principle" must repair, passing Cleopatra by. 

The village of Erment balances singularly this 
glowing Ghazeeyah fame by offsetting the undoubt- 
ed temple of the doubtful Cleopatra with a vague 
claim of being the birth-place of Moses. We did 
not tarry long enough to resolve the question, al- 
though as he was found by Pharaoh's daughter 
among the bulrushes of the lower Nile, there is no 
glaring impossibility that he may have been born at 
Erment. 

Disregarding Moses, we cordially cursed the shekh 
of the village, who has coolly put his mud hovel up- 
on the roof of the adyta of the temple, and quite as 
coolly converted the adyta themselves into dun- 
geons. The modern Egyptian has not the slightest 
curiosity or interest in the noble remains of his land. 
He crawls around them, and covers them with mud 
cells, in which he and his swarm like vermin. But 
speak them fair as you would water rats. Without 
ideas, how can they feel the presence of ideas ? We 



278 NILE NOTES. 

passed through the mud-walled court below the 
shekh's dwellmg to reach the adyta of the temple 
The court was grouped with Arnout soldiers, crouch- 
ing over a fire, smoking and chatting. These Alba- 
nians were the fiercest part of Grandfather Melie- 
met's army. They revolted when Belzoni was in 
Cairo, drove tlie Pacha into the citadel, ravaged the 
city at leisure, and were then quieted. But they 
became altogether too fierce — assassinating quiet 
and moral Mohammedans on the slightest provoca- 
tion, and Christians as they would cockroaches — 
and Grandfather Mehemet was obliged to send the 
most of them to the destructive climate of upper 
Ethiopia, and so be gently rid of them. 

They are light-complexioned, sharp-featured, 
smart-looking men, else had Mehemet Ali not 
used them so constantly, and are by far the most 
intelligent-looking class in Egyj^t ; for they have 
dashes of Greek blood in their veins, and modern 
Greek blood is thick with knavery. But their faces 
are as bad as bright. Like fish, they seem to have 
cold blood, and you feel that they would rather shoot 
you than not, as boys prefer sticking flies to letting 
them be. Hence a certain interest with which the 
passing Howadji regards their silver-mounted pis- 
tols. 

We paused a moment at the door of the adytum, 



CLEOPATRA. 279 

and a swarm of unclean women came clustering out. 
They were the relatives of the prisoners whom the 
government held in the dungeons. There was no 
light in the small chamber which we stooped to 
enter, except what curious daylight stole shrinking- 
ly in at- the low door. Abdallah lighted his torch, 
and we looked around upon the holy of holies of 
Queen Cleopatra. The adytum was small, and 
reeked with filth and stench. Two or three prison- 
ers lay miserably upon the damp floor, and we held 
our glaring torch over them, and looked at the 
sculptures on the walls. But without much heart. 
It was sorry work, and we made it brief— the indul- 
gence of curiosity and sentiment in so sad a society. 

There was a little inner room, upon the walls of 
which we found the other portrait of the queen. 
But I could not remain — imagination and the mere 
human stomach recoiled. For in this adytum of 
adyta in Cleopatra's temple — the olive-browed — 
the odorous — was uncleanness such as scarcely the 
pilgrim to the Tarpeian rock has conceived. 

We passed through the court unshot, and through 
the dusty village, whose myriad dogs, and of espe- 
cial foul fame even in Egypt, barked frantically, and 
so emerged upon the corn stubble and the coarse 
hilfeh grass, upon the river bank. Then through a 
palm-grove we entered upon greener reaches, and 



280 NILE NOTES. 

sat down upon a high point over the river to await 
the boat, which was to float slowly down and meet 
us. The perfection of the day lacked only a vision 
of leisure, graceful life. And what other could the 
vision be upon that point in the calm air, high over 
the calm water, but that of the queen's barge, 
sumptuously gliding upon the golden gleam ? Be- 
hold it, dreamer, where it comes : 

" The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, 
Burned on the water : the poop was beaten gold, 
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that 
The winds were love-sick with them : the oars were silver, 
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
The water which they beat to follow faster, 
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 
It beggared all description : she did lie 
In her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue,) 
O'erpicturing that Venus, where we see 
The fancy outwork nature. On each side her 
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids 
With diverse-colored fans, whose wind did seem 
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool — 
And what they undid, did." 

'• rare for Antony !" 

" Her gentlewomen like the Nereides, 
So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, 
And made their bends adornings. At the helm 
A seeming mermaid steers, the silken tackle 
Swells with the touches of those flower-soft hands, 
That yarely frame the office. From the barge 
A strange, invisible perfume hits the sense 
Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast 
Her people out upon her, and Antony, 
Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone, 



CLEOPATRA. 281 

Whistling to tho air, which, but for vacancy, 
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra, too, 
And made a gap in nature." 

"Rare Egyptian." 

*' There's the junk," said the Pacha. 

" She be float very quick," said Golden-Sleeve, 
and sliding down the sand, we stepped on board and 
gave chase to fancy's fair flotilla. Fair and fleet, 
it floated on, away, nor ever comes to shore. But 
still through the cloudless calm of sky and stream 
your dreaming sees it pass, with measured throb of 
languid oars, voluptuous music voicing the day's 
repose. 

In the afternoon, we dropped leisurely down the 
river to Thebes. Before sunset we were moored to 
the shore of Luxor, on the eastern side of the stream, 
and almost in the shadow of the temple. A cluster 
of Howadji's boats clung to the shore with gay 
streamers and national flags, and all over the shore 
sat and stood groups of natives w^ith trinkets and 
curiosities to sell, or donkeys to let. We strolled 
up to the temple of Luxor, and looked westward 
over the mountains of the "Libyan suburb," as He- 
rodotus calls the part of the city upon the western 
shore. It was covered with temples and tombs 
then, but the great mass of the city was on the east- 
ern bank, where Luxor now stands. The highlands 



282 



NILE NOTES. 



were exquisitely Imed in the sunset. But Patience 
was so belabored with an universal shriek of buck- 
sheesh, that she fled to the junk again, and recovered 
in the cool calm of Theban starlight. 



XXXVI. 

MEMNON. 

" Heard melodies are sweet, — but those unheard are sweeter." 

From earliest childhood Memnon was the central, 
commanding figure in my fancies of the East. Ris- 
ing imagination struck first upon his form, and he 
answered in music — wondrous, wooing, winning, 
that must needs vibrate forever, although his voice 
is hushed. Whether this was from an instinctive 
feeling, that this statue and its story were a kind of 
completeness and perfection in art — the welcome 
recognition of art by nature — or more probably 
from the simple marvellousness and beauty of the 
tale, I shall inquire of the Sphinx. As we passed up 
the river, and I beheld in the solemn, sunless morn- 
ing light, like a shadowed, thoughtful summer day, 
the majestic form sitting serenely upon the plain, 
the most prominent and noticeable object in the 
landscape, I knew that memories would linger 
around him as hopes had clustered, and that his 
calm grandeur would rule my East forever. 



:284 NILE NOTES. 

For throned upon ruined Thebes sits Memnon, 
himself a ruin, but regal still. Once seen he is 
always seen, and sits as uncrumbling in memory as 
in the wide azure silence of his Libyan plain. 
Daily comes the sun as of old, and inspires him no 
longer. Son of the morning ! why so silent ? Yet 
not dumb utterly, sing still the Persians, when poets 
listen, kindred sons of the morning. 

Yearly comes the Nile humbly to his feet, and 
laving them, pays homage. Then receding slowly, 
leaves water plants wreathed around the throne, on 
which he is sculptured as a good genius harvesting 
the lotus, and brings a hundred travellers to perpe- 
tuate the homage. 

The history of art says little of Memnon and his 
mate, and the more perfect Colossi of Aboo Simbel. 
Yet it is in these forms that the Howadji most 
strongly feels the maturity of the Egyptian mind — 
more strongly than in the temples whose sculptures 
are childish. But here you feel that the artist re- 
cognized, as we do to-day, that serene repose is the 
attitude and character of godlike grandeur. 

Nor are there any works of art so well set in the 
landscape, save the Pestum temples in their sea- 
shored, mountain-walled prairie of flowers. Stand- 
ing between the columns of Neptune's temple at 
Pestum, let the lover of beauty look out over the 



M E M N O N . 285 

bloom-brilliant plain to the blue sea, and meditate 
of Memnon. Then, if there be pictures or poems or 
melodies in his mind, they will be Minerva-born, 
and surprise himself. Yet he will have a secreter 
sympathy with these forms than with any temple, 
how grand or graceful soever. Yes, and more than 
with any statue that he recalls. And that sympathy 
will be greater in the degree that these are grander. 
Not the elastic grace of the Apollo will seem so cog- 
nate to him as the melancholy grandeur of Memnon. 
For these forms impress man with himself. These 
are our forms, and how wondrously fashioned ! In 
them, we no longer succumb to the landscape, but 
sit individual and imperial, under the sky, by 
the mountains and the river. Man is magnified in 
Memnon. 

These sublime sketches in stone are an artist's 
work. They are not mere masses of uninformed 
material. And could we know to-day the name of 
him who carved them in their places, not the great- 
est names of art should be haloed with more radiant 
renown. In those earlier days, art was not content 
with the grace of nature, but coped with its pro- 
portions. Vain attempt, but glorious ! It was to 
show us as we are ideally in nature, not the great- 
est, but the grandest. And to a certain degree this 
success is achieved. The imitative Romans essayed 



286 NILE NOTES. 

the same thing. But their little men they only- 
made larger little men by carving them fifty feet 
high. Out of Nero, Tiberius, or Caligula, to make 
an imposing work of art, although you raised the 
head to the clouds, was more than Roman, or Greek, 
or any human genius could achieve. It was still 
littleness on a great scale. Size is their only merit, 
and the elaborate detail of treatment destroys, as 
much as possible, all the effect of size. But the 
Egyptian Colossi present kings, of kingliness so 
kingly, that they became gods in the imagination 
of men, and remain gods in their memories. 

Vain attempt, says truly the thoughtful artist. 
But glorious, responds the poet. Vain and glorious 
as the attempt of youth to sculpture in hard life its 
elastic hope. Failure fairer than general success. 
Like the unfinished statues of Michael Angelo — 
unfinished, as if an ideal ever too lofty and various 
haunted his imagination, whereto human tools were 
insufficient. Alone in sculpture, Michael Angelo's 
Night and Moses are peers of the reahii of Memnon 
and the Aboo Simbel Colossi. 

Looking into the morning mists of history and 
poetry, the Howadji finds that Homer mentions 
Memnon as a son of Aurora and Titho, King of 
Ethiopia, and brother of Priam, the most beautiful 
of warriors, who hastened with myriads of men to 



M E M N OX. 287 

assist uncle Priam against the Greeks. Achilles 
slew Memnon under the walls of Troy, and the 
morning after his death, as Aurora put aside the 
darkness, and looked vaguely and wan along the 
world, the first level look that touched the lips of 
the hitherto silent statue upon the plain, evoked 
mysterious music. There were birds, too, Memnon- 
ides, who arose from out the funeral pyre of Mem- 
non, and as he burned, fought fiercely in the air, so 
that more than half fell offerings to his manes. 
Every year they return to renew the combat, and 
every year, with low wailings, they dip their wings 
in the river water, and carefully cleanse the statue. 
Dew-diamonded cobwebs, fascinating fable, O his- 
tory ! 

Emperors, historians, and poets, heard this sound, 
or heard of it, nor is there any record of the phe- 
nomenon anterior to the Romans. Strabo is the 
first that speaks of it, and Strabo himself heard it. 
But the statue was then shattered, and he did not 
know if the sound proceeded from the Colossus or 
the crowd. Singularly enough, the sound is not 
mentioned before the statue w^as broken, nor after 
it was repaired, a space of about two hundred years. 
Yet, during that time, it uttered the seven mystic 
vowels, which are the very heart of mysteries to 
us. To Hadrian, the emperor, it sang thrice of a 



2SS NILE NOTES. 

morning, yet to the Emperor Severus, who repair- 
ed it, it was always silent. But Severus came as a 
raging religionist, a pious pagan, while Hadrian 
stood with Antinous, whom the morning loved and 
stole early away. For they die young whom the gods 
love, and Aurora is their friend. The Persian poets 
would like to be quoted here, but, Persians, it 
was your King Cambyses who shattered our statue. 
You may yet read the words sculptured upon its 
sides, speaking sadly and strangely out of the dim 
depths of that antiquity, w^hich yet waxed and 
waned under the same blue sky, with the same 
mountain outline upon which your eye, still wan- 
dering from Memnon, waves away into rosy reverie. 
"I write after having- heard Memnon. Cambyses 
hath wounded me, a stone cut into the image of the 
sun-king. I had once the sweet voice of Memno, 
but Cambyses has deprived me of the accents 
which express joy and grief." 

" You relate grievous things — your voice is now obscure, 
wretched Statue ! I deplore your fate." 

For these are ruins. Memnon is a mass of square 
blocks of sandstone, from the waist upward. His 
mate is less shattered. In Memnon, of course, the 
original idea is only hinted. But they were to be 
seen from a distance, and so seen, they have yet hu- 



M E M N O N . 2S9 

man grandeur. Memnon has still a distinct and 
mysterious interest ; for no myth of the most grace- 
ful mythology is so significant as its story. 

Science rushes in explanatory, with poetic theo- 
ries of sounding stones in all countries. Humboldt, 
for Humboldt, as we saw, is a poet, is only too glad 
to find upon the banks of the South American Oro- 
noko, granite rocks hailing the morning with organ 
majesty of music. He ascribes the sound to the 
effect of difference of temperature between the sub- 
terranean and outer air. At Syene, too, unimagin- 
ative French naturalists have heard a sonorous 
creaking in the granite quarries, and Napoleon's 
commission heard, rising from the granite ruins of 
Karnak, the same creak, at morning. Yet were it a 
vibration of expanding and contracting stone masses, 
why still and forever silent, mystic Memnon ! 

Priests clambered over night into its lap, and 
struck a metallic stone at sunrise — exclaims erudi- 
tion and Sir Gardner, who climbed into the same 
lap at noonday, and striking the stone with a little 
hammer, produced a sound, which the listening 
peasants described in the same terms that Strabo 
uses. But were priests that struck thrice for Em- 
peror Hadrian so unsycophantic grown, that even 
for Severus, the restorer of their statue and of their 

worship, they would not strike at all ? 
13 



290 NILE NOTES. 

Back into romance, mystic Memnon ! Neither 
the priests who cajoled with it — nor the Pharaoh 
who built it — nor the wise who deepen its mystery, 
can affect the artistic greatness of the work, or the 
poetic significance of its story. 

The priests and Pharaohs died, and their names 
with them. But Memnon remains, not mute, 
though silent, and let the heirs of Amunoph III. 
claim it as his statue, from fame, poetry, and thought 
if they dare ! 

Memnon and his mate sat sixty feet into the air, 
before a temple of the said Amunoph — of which a 
few inarticulate stones lie among the grain behind. 
From them to the river, for about a mile's distance, 
went the Strada Regia — the street royal of Thebes. 
There was a street ! upon which, probably, neither 
Grace church nor Trinity would have been impos- 
ing. Yet we are proud of the Neapolitan Toledo — 
of the Roman Corso — of the Berlin Unter den Lin- 
den — of the Parisian Boulevards — of London Re- 
gent street, and we babble feebly of Broadway. 
But oh! if Theban society was proportioned to 
Thebes, to have been a butterfly of that sunshine, 
a Theban sauntering of a sultry January morning 
along the Strada Regia, and to have paused in the 
shadow of Memnon and have taken a hand — any 
hand, for the mummy merchant here will select you 



MEMNON. 291 

a score from under his robe, shrivelled, black, tough, 
smoked-beef sort of hands — and not her lover could 
distinguish the olive tapers of Thothmes III.'s dar- 
ling, the princess Re-ni-no-fre, from the fingers of 
the meanest maid that did not dare look at her. 

Here we stand in the shadow of Memnon on a 
sultry January morning, but the princess Avho should 
meet us here, lies dreamless and forever in those 
yellow hills. Sad moralists, these mummy mer- 
chants, yet they say not a word ! 

An earthquake and Cambyses divide the shame of 
the partial destruction of Memnon ; but it cannot be 
destroyed. This air will cheat time of a prey so 
precious. Yearly the rising Nile heaps its grave 
around it. Gradually the earth will resume, into 
its bosom, this mass which she bore — and there will 
hold it more undecaying than the mountains, the 
embalmed bodies of its contemporaries. Unworn in 
an antiquity in which our oldest fancies are young, 
it will endure to an unimagined future, then, god- 
like, vanish unchanged. 

Pause, poet, shoreward wending. Upon the level 
length of green young grain, smooth as the sea-calm, 
sits Memnon by his mate. If he greet the sun no 
longer in rising, feel in this serene sunset the song 
of his magnificent repose. The austere Arabian 
highlands are tender now. The lonely Libyan 



292 NILE NOTES. 

heights are sand no more, but sapphire. In ever 
delicater depths of blue and gold dissolve the land- 
scape and the sky. It is the transfiguration of na- 
ture, which each of these sunsets is — sweet, and 
solemn, and sad. 

Pause, poet, and confess, that if day dies here so 
divinely, the sublimest human thought could not 
more fitly sing its nativity than with the voice of 
Memnon. 



XXXVII. 

DEAD KINGS. 

A DAZZLING desert defile leads to the kings' tombs 
at Thebes. The unsparing sun burned our little 
cavalcade as it wound along. The white, glaring 
waste was windless ; for, although its hill-walls are 
not lofty, the way is narrow, and stony, and devious. 
So dreary a way must have made death drearier to 
those death-doomed royalties. But we donkeyed 
pleasantly along, like young immortals with all 
eternity before ; and to us, death, and tombs, and 
kings, were myths only. 

And what more are they, those old Egyptian 
monarchs, for whom these tombs were built ? Catch, 
if you can, these pallid phantoms that hover on the 
edge of history. King Apappus is more a brain-vapor 
than Hercules, and our fair, far princess Re-ni-no-fre 
than our ever sea-fresh Venus. We must believe in 
Apollo and the Muses ; but Amun-m-gori III. is ad- 
mitted into history solely by our grace. So much a 



294 NILE NOTES. 

living myth surpasses a dead man ! Give me the 
Parthenon, and you shall have all the tombs of all 
the Theban kings. 

They were separated from the rest of the world 
in the tomb as in the palace. So regal was their 
royalty that no inferior was company select enough 
for their corpses. Unhappy liermits, they had to die 
for society, and then, unhappier, found only them- 
selves. Fancy the mummied monarchs awaking 
immortal and, looking round, to find themselves 
/and ancestors only ! " Nothing but old Charlotte," 
1 said the third saint George of England. And the 
! sameness of the old story must have infused most 
1 plebeian thoughts and desires of society, more 
/ spirited though less select, into the mighty mon- 
archs' minds. For, imagine the four English Georges 
buried together, and together awaking — would any 
celestial imagination fancy that the choicest coterie 
I of heaven ? 

We young immortals, donkeying of a bright, blue 
morning, under blue cotton umbrellas, and cheer- 
fully chatting, can thus moralize upon monarchs at 
leisure, and snap our fingers at scurvy sceptres, 
and crowns that make heads lie uneasy, and dribble 
Hamlet in the churchyard, until we are surfeited 
with self-complacent sentimentality. But contem- 
porary men, now adjacent mummies, looked on, I 



DEAD KINGS. 295 

suppose with more dazzled eyes when a dead king, 
passing, made this defile alive. 

Possibly men were blinded by the blaze of roy- 
alty in those days, as, spite of the complacent 
American Howadji, they are in some others. And 
a thoughtful Theban watching the progress of a 
royal funeral, over the Nile in barges, up the Strada 
Regia, wherein the mighty Memnon shielded the 
eyes of many from the setting sun, then winding 
with melancholy monotony of music, and gusty 
wail, and all human pomp, through the solitary, 
sandy, stony, treeless defile, possibly improvised 
sonnets on the gl6ry of greatness and mused upon 
the fate that so gilded a mortal life and death. 

Seventy-two days the king lay dead in his palace. 

Then his body, filled with myrrh and cassia, and 
cinnamon, and all sweet spices but frankincense, 
was swathed in gummed cloth, the cunning of life 
to cheat corruption, and was borne to the tomb 
which all his life he had been preparing and adorn- 
ing. Yet life was not long enough to make the bed 
for his dreamless slumber, and usually the kings died 
before their tombs were ready. 

Such is royal death, mused that Theban, a pas- 
sage to the delights of heaven from the delights of 
earth — the exchange of the silver for the golden 
goblet. It is symbolized by this defile, dazzling if 



296 NILE NOTES. 

dreary— sunny, if stony and sandy. Ah ! Osiris, 
royal death is the brief, brilliant desert between the 
temple palace and the temple tomb. 

We saw several of these thoughtful Thebans, 
vapory shadows, musing upon the solitary rocks as 
we advanced. Presently we were embosomed in 
the hills. They were only barren and blazing, not 
at all awful or imposing, being too low and perpen- 
dicular. Besides, the rock of which they are com- 
posed, is like a petrified sponge, and looks water- 
worn, which it is not, and unenduring. To-day 
the sun was especially genial, seeming to consider 
the visiting the tombs of kings a very cheerful 
business. So he shone ever more brilliant and burn- 
ingly, and, in the mazes of the spongy rock, caught 
the Howadji, and ogled them with the glaring fierce- 
ness of a lion's lust and hate. 

" Ho, ho !" scoflfed the sun. " These were kings 
of men, and great gods, and leviathans in the land. 
They must lie apart from others in the tomb, and 
be sweet and separate for eternity. And up to this 
warm, winding way, a little after they had come 
hither dead, I saw Cambyses and his proud Persians 
rushing, broad alive, and after them, an endless host 
of kings, travellers, scholars, snobs, cockneys, and all 
other beasts aud birds of prey, and Cambyses to the 
latest shopman broke into the select society, shivered 



DEAD KINGS. 297 

their porphyry sarcophagi, scattered and robbed and 
despoiled, sending away hands, feet, heads, and all 
cherished and sacred jewels and talismans, and now 
I cannot distinguish the dust of Amun-neit-gori, or 
Osirei, or Thothmes from the sand of the hills. 

*' Kings !" scoffed the sun. " Here's a royal shin- 
bone — the shin of a real Theban king. You may 
buy it for a pound to-day, if it were not sold for a 
shilling yesterday, and for a farthing if you'll give 
no more. The ring in his slave's ear, in the plebeian 
tombs, is worth a hundred of it." 

Vainly, a thoughtful Theban, that lingered almost 
invisible in the intense light along the defile, sug- 
gested to the sun, that royalty was never held of 
the body — that monarchs and monarchies were only 
instruments and institutions — that the whole world 
was a convention, and virtue a draft upon heaven. 
The sun would gibe his gibe. 

"Ho, ho! kings' shins, going, going! kings' 
hands and feet, who bids ? Not a para from any of 
the crowd who sell their souls every day to kiss the 
hands and feet of some sort of royalty, the world 
over. Ho, ho, ho, kings!" 

What a diabolical sun ! He scoffed so fervently 
that the Howadji grew very silent, having previous- 
ly thought it rather a good thing to show a mum- 
my at home, that they had found in the kings' 
13* 



298 NILE NOTES. 

tombs at Thebes. But with that sun glaring out 
of the sky, who could dare? So they crept very 
humbly on, deftly defying him and warding off sun- 
strokes with huge, heavy umbrellas of two thick- 
nesses of blue cotton, and, consequently, constantly 
on the point of melting and dripping down the don- 
keys' sides, while the spectral sponge-rock echoed 
the chirrups of the donkey-boys mockingly. " Ah ! 
my young gentlemen travel a long way to see 
tombs. But you will have enough of them one 
day, young gentlemen. What stands at the end of 
all your journeying?" The abashed Howadji crept 
still silently along, and reached, at length, the end 
of the tortuous, stony valley, in the heart of the 
Libyan hills. 

Here was high society. If the field of the cloth 
of gold is famed because two live kings met there, 
what shall this assembly of numberless dead kings, 
and kings only, be ? No squires here, no henchmen 
or courtiers. Nothing but the pure dust here. All 
around us, the low square doors, sculptured in the 
hill-bases, open into their presence-chambers. Nor 
any gold stick in w^aiting, nor lord high chamberlain 
to present us. What democracy so democratic as 
the congregation of dead kings ? Let us descend. 
Even you and I, Pacha, are as good as many dead 
kings. And is not Verde Giovane, himself, equal to 



DEAD KINGS. 299 

X, or an unknown quantity of them? The runaway- 
Mohammed who returned penitent at Syene, shall 
officiate as chamberlain with the torch-crate. ' 

Now down — but hold ! — The kings are not there. 
They are in the Vatican, in the Louvre, in London, 
at Berlin, at Vienna, in choice museums, and scat- 
tered undistinguished upon the rocks. The master 
of the house being out, of course you will not en- 
ter. 

Leave them to museums and histories. What are 
they to us ? Their tombs, not themselves, are our 
shrines to-day. Ramses's tomb is at this moment of 
greater moment to us than his whole life. Were 
he sitting now on Memnon's pedestal, would the 
Howadji sacrifice seeing his tomb to seeing him? 



XXXVIII. 

BURIED. 

The Howadji descended into the tomb. It is the 
trump tomb of the kings' valley, and is named Bel- 
zoni, from the traveller. The peasants observed the 
ground sinking at this point of the hill, and sug- 
gested as much to Dr. Riippell. But Germania, 
though sure, is slow, and while the Doctor whiffed 
meditative meerschaums over it, Belzoni opened it, 
thereby linking his name with one of the most 
perfect of Theban remains. 

We went perpendicularly down a range of shat- 
tered stone steps, and, entering the tomb, advanced 
through a passage still sloping downward. The 
walls were covered with hieroglyphs fresh as of 
yesterday. They are a most graceful ornament in 
their general impression, although the details are 
always graceless, excepting the figures of birds, 
which in all Egyptian sculptures are singularly life- 
like. In the wall and ceiling painting of these 
tomb-passages is the germ of the arabesques of the 



BURIED. 301 

Roman epoch. Here is clearly the dawn of the 
exquisite delicacy of the ceilings of the baths of 
Titus, and the later loveliness of the Loggie. Look- 
ing at these rude lines, but multitudinous and fresh, 
I saw the beginnings of what Raphael perfected. 

Still advancing, the Howadji descended steps and 
emerged in a hall. It is small, but the walls are 
all carefully painted. The gods are there, and the 
heroes — some simple epic of heroic life, doubtless, 
which we do not quite understand, although we 
interpret it very fluently. Other chambers and one 
large hall succeed. In this latter are figures of four 
races upon the central columns, supposed to indi> 
cate the four colored races of the world. The walls 
and ceilings are all painted with figures of the king 
Osirei, father of Ramses, whose tomb it was, offer- 
ing gifts to the gods and receiving grace from 
them. 

These subterranean halls are very solemn. The 
mind perpetually reverts to their host, to the em- 
balmed body that was sealed in the sarcophagus as 
in a rock — surrounded in night and stillness with 
this sculptured society of earth and heaven. It is 
hard to realize that these so finely-finished halls 
were to be closed forever. Nor were they so ; for 
the kings, after three thousand years, were to come 
again upon the earth, and their eyes should first light 



302 NILE NOTES. 

upon the history and the faith of their former life. 
How much of this was pride, how much reverence 
of royalty, how much veneration for the human body ? 

Break a sarcophagus with Cambyses, and ask the 
tenant — or, mayhap, our thoughtful Theban has also 
meditated that theme. While you await the an- 
swer, we pass into a fourth room, and find that 
death, too enamored of a king, did not tarry for the 
tomb's completion ; for here are unfinished draw- 
ings — completed outlines only and no color. 

The effect is finer than that of the finished pic- 
tures. The boldness and vigor of the lines are full 
of power. There are boats and birds, simple lines 
only, which we should admire to-day upon any can- 
vas. That old Egyptian artist was as sure of his 
hand and eye, as the French artist, who cut his 
pupil's paper whith his thumb nail, to indicate that 
the line should run so, and not otherwise. The 
coloring is rude and inexpressive. The drawing of 
the human figure conventional, for the church or the 
priests ordained how the human form should be 
drawn. Later, the church and priests ordained how 
the human form should be governed. Yet, sump- 
tuous scarlet queen, sitting on seven hills, you were 
generous to art, while you w^ere wronging nature. 

There was going down dangerous steps after- 
v^ard, and explorations of chambers dim, whose 



BURIED. 303 

farther end had fallen in and shut out investigation. 
The same song was everywhere sung in different 
keys. Three hundred and twenty feet we advanced 
into the earth, and one hundred and twenty down- 
ward. In that space all the gods were gathered, 
could we have known them, and wondrous histories 
told, could we have heard them. Fresh and fair 
the walls, but the passages and steps were broken, 
and the darkness was intolerably warm and stifling. 
Students of hieroglyphs, artists, the versed in Egyp- 
tian mythology, jackals and mummy-merchants had 
longer tarried and increased their stores. But the 
Howadji did what the owner and builder of the 
tomb could not do. They crept out of it, and sat 
down upon the shattered steps of the entrance, to 
smoke peaceful chibouques. 

At the door of this tomb, as of all others, were 
mummy-merchants, who gathered round us and out- 
spread their wares. Images, necklaces, rings, arms, 
heads, feet, hands, bits of the mummy-case, and lit- 
tle jars of seed, charms, lamps, all the rich robbery 
of the tombs, placidly awaited inspection. The 
mummy-merchants are the population of the Theban 
ruins. Grave ghouls, they live upon dead bodies. 
They come out spectrally from columns and walls, 
as if they were the paintings just peeled of!', and sit 
at tomb doors like suspicious spirits, and accost 



304 NILE NOTES. 

you unintelligibly as you go gaping from wonder to 
wonder. But are grave always, the ghouls, and no 
shrieking pertinacious pedlers. 

We descended a few doors off, into the Harpers' 
tomb : not that a harper is there buried, but there 
are two Homeric figures drawn upon the walls of a 
small room, singing hymns to the harp, and they 
give their name to the tomb. It belongs by right 
to Ramses III. But if that sneering sun could 
steal in, he would tell the Howadji that the harpers 
are more interesting, and that time estimates kings 
at their value. 

This tomb is a contemporary daguerreotype of old 
Egyptian life — the life of the field, of the river, of 
the house, of art, of religion. Fruits are here, 
birds, baskets, vases, couches, pottery, skins. It is 
a more vivid and accurate chronicle than Herodo- 
tus. These figures are drawn in small separate 
chambers, and each kind by itself, as if to symbolize 
the universality of the kings' kingdom and the 
arts in it. They do not seem pictures of separate 
scenes, as in the private tombs, but, as is proper in 
royal tombs, of the general forms and instruments of 
Egyptian life. Yet what is the knowledge that our 
princess Re-ni-no-fre sat upon a chair like ours, if 
we know that she was beautiful and young? 

For the name's sake we entered the tomb of 



BURIED. 305 

Memnon, a title of Ramses V., and because it was 
the favorite of the Greeks. It was easy and pleas- 
ant to see why they preferred it, because of the 
symmetry of the arrangement and the extreme deli- 
cacy, finish, and fineness of the paintings. In the 
farther chamber is a huge sarcophagus of Egyptian 
porphyry, broken by some invader, and over it and 
on all the ceilings are astronomical enigmas of fine 
color. 

From all these royal tombs the occupants are 
long since departed. Not to heaven and hell, but to 
choice cabinets of curiosity, and to the winds, whith- 
er Cambyses and the other invaders incontinently 
sent them. The significance of their much painting 
is mostly a secret. The sacred symbols are too 
mystic for us moderns. That serpent with two 
men's heads at his tail looking backward — three 
snake heads in their proper places looking forward — 
two pairs of human legs walking different ways, 
and inexplicable sprouts upon his back, is more 
puzzling than the interor of Africa or the name of 
Charon's boat. Fancy, of course, figures magnifi- 
cent meanings for the unintelligible, and the fair 
daughters of beamy John Bull, did they not explain 
at length those mysteries over the pleasant dinners 
at Shepherd's ? Yet truth is a simple figure, though 
fond of dress. 



306 NILE NOTES. 

In all the tombs was one god, a foxy-headed di- 
vinity, who greatly charmed us. He was in all 
societies, in all situations. Generally he was tap- 
ping a surprised figure upon the shoulder, and prick- 
ing the fox ears forv/ard, saying, like an impertinent 
conscience, *' Attend, if you please." Then he sits 
in the very council of heaven and hobnobs with 
Amun Re, and again farther on, taps another victim. 
Such sleepless pertness was never divine before. 
Yet he is always good-humored, always ready for 
pot-luck. Grods, kings, or Howadji, all is fish to 
the foxy. He seemed the only live thing in the 
tombs. Much more alive than sundry be-goggled 
and be-veiled male and female Howadji who explor- 
ed with us these realms of royal death. We asked the 
foxy to join us in a sandwich and chibouque in the 
entrance of Memnon's tomb. But he was too busy 
with an individual who seemed not to heed him — 
and remained tapping him upon the walls. 

In the late afternoon we crossed the mountains 
into the valley of priests' tombs. The landscape 
was lovely beyond words, and at sunset, from the 
crumbling Sphinxes of El Kurneh, we turned 
toward Memnon as the faithful turn to Mecca. 
The Howadji fleet, mostly English, lay at the op- 
posite Luxor shore, gay with flags and streamers, 
and boats with mingled Frank and Muslim freight 



BURIED. 307 

glided across the gleaming river. The huge pylon 
of Karnak towered, like the side of a pyramid, over 
the palms ; and in a clumsy tub of a boat, and row- 
ed by a brace of the common right angular oars, 
trimmed boughs of trees, we were forced through 
the rosy calm to our dismantled Ibis. 



XXXIX. 

DEAD QUEENS. 

For even Re-ni-no-fre must die and be buried 
suitably. Love and beauty were no more talismans 
then, than now. Death looked on queens with the 
evil eye. What bowels of beauty and royalty have 
not the Libyan hills ! What Sultan so splendid 
that he has a hareem so precious ! 

The ladies lie lonely and apart from their lords. 
The kings are at one end of the old Libyan suburb 
— the queens at the other. We approached the 
queens' tomb through an ascending sand and stone 
defile. But, as becomes, it is not entirely seques- 
tered from the green of the valley, and the door of 
a queen's tomb framed as fair an Egyptian picture 
as I saw. These tombs are smaller and less import- 
ant than those of the kings. The kings who, as 
at Dahr-el-Baree, inserted their cartouches or 
escutcheons over those of their predecessors, and so 



DEAD QUEENS. 309 

strove to cheat posterity, could not suffer their 
wives to be buried as nobly as themselves. 

Yet after the elaboration and mystic figuring, and 
toiling thought, and depth, and darkness, and v^eari- 
ness of the kings' tombs, the smallness and open- 
ness of the queens' is refreshing. They are mere 
caves in the rock, usually of three or four cham- 
bers. The sculptures and paintings are gracious 
and simple. They are not graceful, but suggest 
the grace and repose w^hich the ideal of female life 
requires. 

Simple landscapes, gardens, fruit, and flowers, 
are the subjects of the paintings. No bewildering 
grandeurs of human-headed and footed serpents — 
of gods inconceivable, bearing inexplicable symbols, 
all w^hich, and the tangled mesh of other theologi- 
cal emblems, is merely human. But the largeness 
and simplicity of natural forms, as true and touch- 
ing to us, as to those who painted them. 

This simplicity, which was intended, doubtless, 
in the royal mind, to symbolize the lesser glory of 
the spouse, is now the surpassing beauty of the 
tombs. In the graceful largeness and simplicity of 
the character of the decorations, it seems as if the 
secret of reverence for womanly character and in- 
fluence, which was to be later revealed, was in- 
stinctively suggested by those who knew them not. 



310 NILE NOTES. 

Eve was truly created long and long after Adam, 
and at rural Worcester, they doubt if she be quite 
completed yet. Those wise Egyptian priests knew 
many things, but knew not the best. And the pro- 
found difference of modern civilization from ancient, 
as of the western from the eastern, what is it but the 
advent of Eve ? In Cairo and Damascus, to-day, 
Adam sits alone with his chibouque and fingan of 
mocha ; but his wives, like the dogs and horses of 
the Western, are excluded from the seats of equality 
and honor. 

The cheerful yellow hues of the walls, and their 
exposure to the day, the warm silence of the hill 
seclusion, and the rich, luminous landscape in the 
vista of the steep valley, made these tombs pleas- 
ant pavilions of memory. We wandered through 
them refreshed, as in gardens. They are all the 
same, and you will not explore many. But the 
mind digests them easily and at once — while 
those kings' tombs may yet give thought a dys- 
pepsia. 

While the Howadji loitered, ecco mi qua, stood our 
foxy friend upon the bright walls. " Well said, old 
mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?" "Yes," 
said he, *'I thought I'd step over; their majesties 
might be lonely." 

Foxy, Foxy ! I elect thee to my Penates. To 



DEAD QUEENS. 311 

thee shall an altar be builded, and an arm-chair 
erected thereupon. Thereof shall punch-bowls be 
the vessels, and fragrant latakia the incense. A 
model god is foxy, alive, active, busy — looking in 
at the hareem, too, lest they be lonely ! 



XL. 

ET CETERA. 

The mere Theben subjects died, too, and they 
also had to be buried. Their tombs are in the 
broad face of the mountains toward the river, and 
between those of the kings and queens. They 
command a fairer earthly prospect than those of 
their royal masters, and, Osiris favoring, their occu- 
pants reached the heavenly meads as soon. 

The great hillside is honey-combed with these 
tombs. There is no wonder so wonderful that it 
shall not be realized, and the Prophet's coffin shall 
be miraculous no longer ; for here the dwellings of 
the dead overhang the temples and the houses. 
The romantic Theban could not look at the sunset, 
but he must needs see tombs and find the sunset too 
seriously symbolical. Clearly with the Thebans, 
death was the great end of life. 

The patient little donkeys would have tugged us 
up the steep sand and rock-slope, from the plain of 
Thebes. But we toiled up on foot through a vil- 



ET CETEKA. 3l3 

lage of dust, and barking dogs, and filthy people, 
inconceivable, and on and higher, through mummy- 
swathings, cast oiF from rifled mummies and bleach- 
ing bones. If a civilized being lived in modern 
Thebes, he would certainly inhabit a tomb for its 
greater cleanliness and comfort, and would find it, 
too, freshly frescoed. 

In the kings' tombs, we encountered the unre- 
solvable theological enigmas, with the stately socie- 
ty of gods and heroes. The queens welcomed us 
in gardens and in barges of pleasure, while timbrels 
and harps rang, and the slaves danced along the 
walls, offering fruit and flowers — or would have 
done so, had they not rejoined their spouses in 
choice cabinets. 

But the plebeians receive us in the midst of their 
fields and families. The hints of the Harper's 
tomb are minutely developed in many of the pri- 
vate tombs. Every trade, and the detail of every 
process of household economy — of the chase, and 
all other departments of Theban life, are there pic- 
tured. Much is gone. The plaster-casing of the 
rock peels away. Many are caves only. But in 
some, the whole circle of human labor seems to be 
pictorially completed. 

The social scenes are most interesting. Very 

graceful is a line of guests smelling the lotus offered 
14 



314 NILE NOTES. 

as a welcome ; but times change and manners. 
Pleasant and graceful would it yet be to welcome 
friends with flowers. But all do not dwell upon 
rivers, neither are the shores of all rivers lithe with 
lilies. Haply for modern welcome, a cigar and 
glass of sherry suffice. 

I say graceful, meaning the idea ; for upon the 
walls you would see a very stiff row of stiff figures 
smelling at stiff flowers. With your merely mod- 
ern notions, you would probably mistake the lotus 
for a goblet. Were you an artist, you would cher- 
ish the idea until you carved in a cuj) that graceful 
flower-form. Figures of musicians, whose harps, 
and guitars, and tambourines, would seem to you 
the germs of the tar and the rabab, would awaken 
vague visions of Hecate and the old husband. But 
if you beheld the dancers, infallibly you would 
slide down three thousand years in a moment, and, 
musily gazing from the door into the soft morning, 
your eyes would yearn toward Esne, and even your 
more-severel^ regulated heart, memory, mind, or 
what you will, toward the gay Ghazeeyah and the 
modest dove. 

These tombs, like the rest, are tenantless. At 
intervals come the scientific and open new ones. 
The mummy-merchants and Howadji follow and 
seize the spoils. Time succeeds and preys, though 



ET CETERA. 315 

tenderly, upon the labor of an antiquity that has 
eluded him ; for he was busy in the plain below 
smoothing the green grave of Thebes. For the 
tomb of Thebes itself is the freshest and fairest of 
all. The stars come and go in the ceiling. The 
wheat waves and is harvested — flowers spring and 
fade upon the floor. The same processes of life are 
not repeated, but they are real there. Its tenant, 
too, has disappeared like the rest — but into no 
known cabinet. 

We emerged from the tombs, and clomb down 
the hill. A house of unusual pretension, with a 
swept little court in front, attracted our notice. O 
traveller ! heed not the clean little court ; for the 
figure that sits therein, amply arrayed, sedately 
smoking as if life were the very vanity of vanities, 
is the monarch of mummy-merchants, who exacts 
terrible tribute from the Howadji. A Greek ghoul 
is he, who lives by the living no less than the dead. 

Fix your eye upon Memnon, and follow to the 
plain. Amble quietly in his sunset-shadow to the 
shore. The air will sway with ghosts you cannot 
lay. Dead Thebans from the mountains will glide 
shadowy over dead Thebes in the plain. Chapless, 
fallen, forgotten now, we too, were young immor- 
tals — we, too, were born in Arcady ! 



XLI. 

THE MEMNONIUM. 

There is a satisfaction in the entire desolation 
of Thebes. It is not a ruin, but a disappearance. 
The Libyan suburb, which seems to have been all 
tombs and temples, is now only a broad and deep 
green plain, ending suddenly in the desert, at the 
foot of the mountains. Thereon Memnon and his 
mate, the Memnonium and Medeenet Haboo, are 
alone conspicuous. Exploration reveals a few other 
temples and some mighty statues, which, as they 
lie broken at Titan length — their sharp outlines 
lost by the constant attrition of the sand — seem to 
be returning into rock. 

This plain, making a green point in the river, is 
by far the most striking situation for a city. Yet 
we see it, deducting the few ruins, as men lost in 
the past saw it. Nor shall the American— ^-whose 
history is but born — stand upon this plain of 
Thebes which has outlived its history, without a 
new respect for our mother earth who can so deftly 



THE MEMNONIUM. 317 

destroy, sand-grain by sand-grain, the most stupen- 
dous human works. 

Step westward and behold a prairie. Consider 
the beginnings of a world metropolis there — its 
culmination in monuments of art — its lingering de- 
cay and desolation, until its billowy, tumultuous 
life is again smoothed into a flowery prairie. With 
what yearning wonder would the modern, who saw 
it, turn to us, lost in antiquity. Then step east- 
ward and behold Thebes. 

The Memnonium is not the remains of the temple 
before which Memnon sat. It was a temple-palace 
of Ramses the Oreat. It is a group of columns 
now with fallen and falling pylons, a few hundred 
rods from Memnon. You will find it one of the 
pleasantest ruins ; for the rude, historical sculptures 
are well-nigh erased. There are no dark chambers, 
no intricacy of elaborate construction to consider, 
and the lotus-capitaled columns are the most grace- 
ful I saw. 

We must be tolerant of these Egyptian historical 
sculptures upon pylons and temple walls for the 
sake of history and science. But the devotee of 
art and beauty will confess a secret comfort in the 
Memnonium, where the details are fast crumbling, 
and the grandeur of the architecture stands unen- 
cumbered. Here is an architecture perfect in its 



318 NILE NOTES. 

grand style in any age. Yet, on the truly rounded 
columns, palm-like below, and opening in a lotus 
cup to bear the architrave, are sculptures of a ludi- 
crous infancy of art. It is hard to feel that both 
were done by the same people. Had they then no 
feeling of symmetry and propriety ? It is as if the 
Chinese had sculptured the walls of St. Peter's or 
the Vatican. 

In the midst of the Memnonium, lies the shatter- 
ed Colossus of Ramses — a mass of granite equal to 
that of Memnon. How it was overthrown and 
how broken will never be known. It is comforta- 
ble to be certain of one thing in the bewildering 
wilderness of ruin and conjecture, even if it be only 
ignorance. Cambyses, the unlucky Persian, is here 
the scapegoat, as he is of Memnon's misfortune and 
of Theban ruin in general. " Cambyses, or an 
earthquake," insists untiring antiquarian specula- 
tion, clearly wishing it may be Cambyses. An 
earthquake, then, and oh ! pax ! 

This Colossus sat at the temple gate. His hands 
lay upon his knees, and his eyes looked eastward. 
And even the tumbled mass is yet serene and digni- 
fied. Is art so near to nature that the statue of 
greatness can no more lose its character than great- 
ness itself? 

Behind the statue was a court surrounded with 



THE MEMNONIUM. 319 

Osiride columns, and a few shattered ones remain. 
I fancy the repose of that court in a Theban sunset, 
the windless stillness of the air, and cloudlessness 
of the sky. The king enters, thoughtfully pacing 
by the calm-browed statue, that seems the sentinel 
of heaven. In the presence of the majestic col- 
umns humanly carved, their hands sedately folded 
upon their breasts — his weary soul is bathed with 
peace, as a weary body with living water. 

Kamses' battles and victories are sculptured upon 
the walls — his offerings to the gods, and their recep- 
tion of him. There is an amusing discrepancy be- 
tween the decay and disappearance of these, and the 
descriptions in Sir Gardner. Spirited word-paint- 
ings of battle-scenes, and scenes celestial, or even 
animated descriptions of them, are ludicrously criti- 
cized by their subjects. That, too, is pleasant to the 
Ilowadji, who discovers very rapidly what his work 
in the Memnonium is ; and stretched in the shadow 
of the most graceful column, while Nero silently 
pencils its flower-formed capital in her sketch-book, 
he looks down the vistas and beyond them, to Mem- 
non, who, for three thousand years and more, has sat 
almost near enough to throw his shadow upon this 
temple, yet has never turned to see it. 

There sat the Howadji many still hours, looking 
now southward to Memnon, now eastward to gray 



320 NILE NOTES. 

Karnak, over the distant palms. Perchance, in that 
corridor of columns, Memnon and the setting sun 
their teachers, the moments were no more lost than 
by young Greek immortals in the porch of the 
philosophers. Yet here can be slight record of 
those hours. The flowers of sunset-dreams are too 
frail for the herbarium. 

There dozed the donkeys, too, dreaming of pas- 
tures incredible, whither hectoring Howadji come 
no more. Donkeys ! are there no wise asses among 
you, to bid you beware of dreaming? For we 
come down upon your backs, like stern realities 
upon young poets, and urge you across the plain 
to Medeenet Haboo. 

Ah ! had you and the young poets but heeded 
the wise asses ! 



XLII. 

MEDEENET HABOO. 

Wonderful are the sculptures of Medeenet 
Haboo — a palace temple of Ramses III. They are 
cut three or four inches deep into the solid stone, 
and gazing at them, and in a little square tower 
called the pavilion, trying to find on the walls what 
Sir Gardner and the poet Harriet say is there, you 
stumble on, over sand-heaps and ruin, and enter at 
length the great court. 

The grave grandeur of this court is unsurpassed 
in architecture — open to the sky above, a double 
range of massive columns supported the massive 
pediment. The columns upon the court were 
Osiride — huge, square masses with the figures with 
the folded hands carved in bold relief upon their 
faces, and carved all over with hieroglyphs. The 
rear row was of circular columns, with papyrus 
or lotus capitals. The walls, dim seen behind the 
double colonnade, are all carved with history, and 
the figures upon them, w^ith those of the archi- 
traves, variously colored. 
14* 



322 NILE NOTES. 

It is solemn and sublime. The mosaic, finical ef- 
fect of so much carving and coloring is neutralized 
by the grandeur and mass of the columns. In its 
prime, when the tints were fresh, although the 
edges of the sculptures could never have been 
sharper than now, the priests of Medeenet Haboo 
were lodged as are no modern monarchs. 

Time and Cambyses have been here, too, and 
alas! the Christians, the Coptic Christians, who 
have defiled many of the noblest Egyptian remains, 
plastering their paintings, building miserable mud 
cabins of churches in their courts, with no more 
feeling and veneration than the popes who- sur- 
mount obelisks with the cross. I grant the ruined 
temples ofilBred material too valuable to be left 
through regard to modern sentiment, and curiosity 
of Egyptian history and art. It is true, also, that 
the Christian plastering did preserve many of the 
pagan paintings. But you will grant that man, and 
especially the Howadji species, has a right to rail 
at all defiling and defilers of beauty and grandeur. 
Has not the name Goth passed into a proverb ? Yet 
were the Goths a vigorous, manly race, with a 
whole modern world in their loins, who came and 
crushed an effete people. 

But enough for the Copts. 

They erected a church in the great court of Me- 



MEDEENET HA BOO. 323 

deenet Haboo, piercing the architrave all round for 
their rafters, instead of roofing the court itself. 
Nor let the faithful complain of the presence of pa- 
gan symbols. For the Copts and early Egyptian 
Christians had often the pagan images and pictures 
over their altars. Nay, does not Catholic Christen- 
dom kiss to-day the great toe of Jupiter Olympans, 
with religious refreshment? 

Now the Coptic columns of red sandstone encum- 
ber this noble court and lie levelled, poor pigmies, 
amid the Titanic magnificence of the standing or 
fallen original columns. The Christian columns are 
about the size and appearance of those in the San 
Spirito, at Florence. Benign Brunellesco, forgive, 
but the architecture of modern Europe is sternly 
criticized by this antique African court. 

The Howadji sat upon a fragment of ruin, and 
the graybeard guide, who happily could not speak 
ten words of English, lighted their chibouques. 
Then he withdrew himself behind a prostrate col- 
umn, seeing that they wished to be still, and lay 
there motionless, like time sleeping at his task. 
The donkey-boys spoke only in low whispers, curi- 
ously watching the Howadji, and the dozy donkeys 
with closing eyes, shook their significant ears, and 
shifted slowly from sun to shade. The musing, 
dreamy chibouque is, after all, the choicest com- 



324 NILE NOTES. 

panion for these ruins. Chibouques and dozy don- 
keys, a sleeping old man, and low whispering boys, 
scare not the spirits that haunt these courts. Time, 
too, you will muse, smokes his chibouque as he lies 
at leisure length along the world. PufF, pufF — he 
whifFs away creeds, races, histories, and the fairest 
fames flee like vapors from his pipe. India, Egypt, 
Greece, wreathing azurely away in the sunshine. 
Smoke, smoke, all. 

Pace with Sir Gardner along the walls, if you 
will, and behold the triumphal processions, deifica- 
tions, battles, and glories, terrestrial and celestial, 
of the third Pamses. They are curious and worth 
your while. It is well to see and know men' s vari- 
ous ways in various ages, of slaughtering each other, 
and glorifying themselves. 

But in all this detail love it not too much. In 
these temple remains, in the nectar of Egyptian 
wisdom, as Plato and the old wise pour it to us in 
their vases of wondrous work, have we our heritage 
of that race. Spare us the inventory of their ward- 
robes and the bulletins of their battles. In history 
it is not men's features, but the grand effect and 
impression of the men that we want. Not how 
they did it, but what they did. Ramses marched 
to Babylon. Cambyses came to Thebes. Quits for 
them. Cambyses upset Memnon. That is the 



MEDEENET HABOO. 325 

great thing, and if thereupon, near-sighted wonder 
will see stars in a millstone, we will be thankful for 
astronomy's sake, and awaken old time there to re- 
fill the chibouques. 

For in this magnificent seclusion must we linger 
and linger. The setting sun warns us away, but in 
leaving, this evening, we leave the Libyan suburb 
forever, nor even the morrow with Karnak can para- 
lyze the pang of parting. 

It is only here, too — here in the warm dead heart 
of Egypt, that the traveller can see ruins as time 
has made and is making them. Thebes is not yet 
put in order for visitors. The rubbish of the ruin- 
ed huts of the Christian settlement, within and 
about this pile, yet remains. The desert has drifted 
around it, so that many noble columns are buried 
in dust to their capitals. The chambers of the 
temple are entirely earthed. We climb a sand-hill 
from the court to the roof of the temple. Far 
down in fissures of rubbish, are bits of sculptured 
wall, and, upon the same dust-mountain, we descend 
to view the historical sculptures of the outer wall. 

This deepens the reality and solemnity of the im- 
pression. Were it all excavated, and the whole 
temple cleared and revealed, it were a glorious gain 
for art and science. But to the mere traveller — if 
one may be a mere traveller — the dust-buried cham- 



326 NILE NOTES. 

bers solemnize the court. If the head and unutter- 
able neck of Isis are revealed, wonder for the rest 
is more worshipful than sight. 

Besides, excavation implies cicerones and swarms 
of romantic travellers in the way of each other's 
romance. You will remember, Xtopher, how fatal 
to sentiment was a simple English " good evening," 
in the moonlighted Roman forum. Imagination 
craved only salutations after the high Roman fash- 
ion, and when Lydia Languish did not find the Coli- 
seum so ^^funnif as Naples, you regretted the facili- 
ties of steam, and yearned to pace that pavement 
alone with the ghosts of Caesar and Marc Antony. 
Haste to Egypt, Xtopher, and that Roman wish 
shall be fulfilled ; for you shall walk erect and alone 
with Persian Cambyses, or mild-eyed Herodotus, or 
inscrutable Ramses — for " there is every man his 
own fool, and the world's sign is taken down." 

Excavation implies arrangement, and the sense of 
time's work upon a temple or a statue, or even a hu- 
man face, is lost or sadly blunted, when all the chips 
are swept away, and his dusty, rubbishy work-shop 
is smoothed into a saloon of sentiment. Who ever 
entered, for the first time, the Coliseum, without a 
fall to zero in the mercury of enthusiasm, at the 
sight of the well-sanded area, the cross, shrines, and 
sentinels? When it is not enough that science and 



MEDEENET HABOO. 327 

romance carry away specimens of famous places 
to their museums, but Mammon undertakes the 
making of the famous place itself into a choice 
cabinet, they may be esteemed happy who flourish- 
ed prior to that period. 

And it is pleasant to see remains so surpassingly 
remarkable, without having them shown by a seedy- 
coated, bad-hatted, fellow-creature, at five francs 
a day. You climb alone to Aboo Simbel in that se- 
rene southern silence, and half fear to enter the 
awful presence of the Osiride columns, or to pene- 
trate into the adyta, mysterious to you as to those 
of old, and you donkey quietly, with a taciturn 
old time, over the plain of green young grain, 
where Thebes was, and feel as freshly as the first 
who saw it. 

But these things will come. Egypt must soon 
be the favorite ground of the modern Nimrod, tra- 
vel — who so tirelessly hunts antiquity. After 
Egypt, other lands and ruins are young, and scant, 
and tame, save the Parthenon and Pestuni. Every 
thing invites the world hither. 

It will come, and Thebes will be cleaned up and 
fenced in. Steamers will leave for the cataract, 
where donkeys will be in readiness to convey par- 
ties to Philae, at seven a. m. precisely, touching 
at Esne and Edfoo. Upon the Libyan suburb will 



328 NILE NOTES. 

arise the Hotel royal em Ramses -le grand for the se- , 
lectest fashion. There will be the Hotet de Mem-'' 
nen for the romantic, the Hotel aux Tombeaiix for the 
reverend clergy, and, the Pension Ke-ni-no-fre upon 
the water-side for the dnvalides and sentimental — 
only these names will then be English ; for France 
is a star eclipsed in the East. 

But, before the world arrives, live awhile in the 
loneliness of the Theban temples and tombs, with 
no other society than Memnon, and the taciturn old 
time, and the chibouque. You will seem then, not 
to have travelled in vain, but to have arrived some- 
where. Here you will realize what you have read 
and thought you believed, that the past was alive. 
The great vague phantom, that goes ever before us, 
will pause here, and turning, look at you with hu- 
man features, and speak a language sweet, and sol- 
emn, and strange, though unintelligible. 

You, too, will linger and linger, though the sun- 
set warn you away. You, too, will tarry for the 
priests in the court of Meedenet Haboo, and listen 
for the voice of Memnon. You, too, will be glad 
that the temples are as time left them, and that 
man has only wondered, not worked, at them. 
You, too, will leave lingeringly the Libyan suburb, 
and own to Osiris in your heart, that if the young 
gods are glorious, the old gods were great. 



XLIII. 

KARNAK. 

Karnak antedates coherent history, yet it was 
older the day we saw it than ever before. All 
thought and poetry, inspired by its antiquity, had 
richer reason that day than when they were record- 
ed, and so you, meditative reader, will have the ad- 
vantage of this chapter, when you stand in Karnak. 
Older than history, yet fresh, as if just ruined for 
the romantic. 

The stones of the fallen walls are as sharply- 
edged as the hammer left them. They lie in huge 
heaps, or separately standing in the sand ; and, re- 
garding the freshness, you would say that Cambyses 
and his Persians had marched upon Memphis only 
last week, while the adherents of the earthquake 
theory of Egyptian ruin, might fancy they yet felt 
the dying throes of the convulsion that had shatter- 
ed these walls. 

This freshness is startling. It is sublime. Em- 
balming these temples in her amber air, has not na- 
ture so hinted the preservation of their builders' 



330 NILE NOTES. 

bodies ? Was the world so enamored of its eldest 
born, that it could not suffer even the forms of his 
races and their works to decay ? And, O mild-eyed 
Isis ! how beautiful are the balances of nature ! In 
climates where damp and frost crack and corrode, 
she cherishes with fair adorning the briefer decay. 
Italy had greenly graced Karnak with foliage. 
Vines had there clustered and clambered caressingly 
around these columns, in graceful tendrils wreathing 
away into the blue air its massive grace. Flowery 
grass had carpeted the courts, and close-clinging 
moss shed a bloom along the walls to the distant 
eye of hope or memory. 

Haply it had been dearer so to the painter and the 
poet. But this death that does not decay, is awful. 
On the edge of the desert, fronting the level green 
that spreads velvet before it to the river, Karnak 
scorns time, earthquakes, Cambyses, and Lathyrus, 
yes, and scorns, also, romantic disappointment. For 
it is not the most interesting or pleasing of Egyp- 
tian remains. It is austere and terrible, and sure 
to disappoint the romance that seeks in ruins, bow- 
ers of sentiment. Let the Misses Verde remember 
that, when they consider the propriety of visiting 
Karnak. Peradventure, also, they will there dis- 
cover hieroglyphs more inexplicable than those of 
Theban tombs. 



KARNAK. 331 

When Thebes was Thebes, an avenue of ram- 
headed sphinxes connected Karnak with Luxor. 
Imagination indulges visions of Ramses the Great, 
superb Sesostris, or the philosophical Ptolemies, 
going in state along this avenue, passing from glory 
to glory — possibly a statelier spectacle than the 
royal going to open parliament. Brightly that 
picture would have illuminated these pages. But 
reality, our coldest critic, requires cooler coloring 
from us. 

It was a bright February morning that we don- 
keyed placidly from ruined Luxor to ruined Thebes. 
The Pacha bestrode a beast that did honor to the 
spirit of his species. But my brute, although large 
and comely, seemed only a stuffed specimen of a 
donkey. Stiffness and clumsiness were his points. 
A very gad-fly of a donkey-boy, his head somewhere 
about my donkey's knees, piloted our way and fill- 
ed our sails — namely, battered the animals' backs. 
But vainly with a sharpened stick he stung my in- 
sensible beast. Only a miserable, perpendicular 
motion ensued, a very little of which had rendered 
beneficent Halsted superfluous to a dyspeptic world. 

Yet somehow we shambled up the sand from the 
boat, and, passing through the bazaar of Luxor, 
entered upon the plain. A dusty donkey-path, 
through clumps of hilfeh grass and sand patches, is 



332 NILE NOTES. 

all that remains of that Sphinx avenue. We scent- 
ed sphinxes all the way, a mile and a half, but un- 
earthed no quarry until within a few rods of the 
pylon. Nero told me afterward, that we had miss- 
ed the sphinx avenue, which I believed, for Nero 
was veracious and my friend. But generally, the 
Howadji must reject all such stories. Not only in 
Egypt, but wherever you wander, if some owl has 
peered into a hole that you passed by, and he dis- 
covers the oversight, you are apprised that you had 
done better not to come at all, rather than miss the 
dark hole. But we passed along a range of head- 
less, ruined sphinxes, that were ram-headed once, 
and reached the southern pylon. It stands alone — 
a simple, sculptured gateway. Behind it, is a small 
temple of Ptolemaic days, partly, but yet a portion 
of the great temple, and we climb its roof to sur- 
vey the waste of Karnak. 

The vague disappointment was natural, it was 
inevitable. It was that of entering St. Peter's and 
finding that you can see the end. Things so famous 
pass into ideal proportions. " In heaven, another 
heaven," sings Schiller, of St. Peter's dome. But 
if Schiller had looked from Monte Mario upon 
Rome ! It is a disappointment quite distinct from 
the real character of the object, whose greatness 
presently compels you to realize how great it is. 



KARNAK. 333 

It is simply the sudden contact of the real with the 
ideal. 

For who ever saw the Coliseum or the Apollo ? 
And when deep in the mountainous heart of Sicily, 
the Howadji saw, green and gentle, the vale of 
Enna — did he see the garden whence Pluto plucked 
his fairest flower ? A Coliseum and an Apollo, 
enough have seen. But the impossible grandeur 
and grace of the anticipation are the glow of the 
ideal — the outline of angels alone. All the vague- 
ness and vastness of Egyptian musing in our minds 
invest Karnak with their own ill imit ability, and 
gather around it as the type and complete embodi- 
ment of that idea. We go forth to behold the 
tower of Babel, and in ruins, it must yet pierce the 
heavens. 

Ah ! insatiable soul, Mont Blanc was not lofty 
enough, nor the Venus fair, yet you had hopes of 
Karnak ! Try Baalbec now, and Dhawnlegiri, sky- 
scaling peak of the Himalaya. 

Karnak was an aggregation of temples. Orsi- 
tasen's cartouche is found there, the first monarch 
that is distinctly visible in Egyptian history, and 
Cleopatra's — the last of the long, long line. Every 
monarch added a pylon, a court, or a colonnade, am- 
bitious each to link his name with the magnificence 
that must outlive them all, and so leave the car- 



334 NILE NOTES. 

touche of Egypt forever in bold relief upon the 
earth. 

The great temple fronted the river westward. 
We are at the south. The eye follows the line of the 
great central building, the nucleus of all the rest, 
backward to the desert. It is lost then in the 
masses of sand, buried foundations, and prostrate 
w^alls which surround it. Separate pylons fronting 
the four winds, stand shattered and submerged. 
Sharply two obelisks pierce the blue air. The 
northern gateway stands lofty and alone, its neigh- 
boring walls levelled and buried. The eastern gate 
toward the desert was never completed, it is only 
half covered with sculptures. The blank death of 
the desert lies gray beyond it. Karnak has grim 
delight in that neighboring grimness. 

From each gate but that desert one, stretched an 
avenue of sphinxes — southward to Luxor, north- 
ward to a raised platform on the hills, westward to 
the river. The fragments yet remain. Yet here, 
too, is that strange discrepancy in taste and sense 
of grandeur, which strikes the eye in the temple 
sculptures compared in character with the archi- 
tecture. These avenues are narrow lanes of 
crowded sphinxes, spoiling their own impression. 
The eye and mind demand a splendid spaciousness 
of approach. They are shocked at the meanness 



KARNAK. 335 

of the reality, and recognize the same inconstant 
and untrue instinct that built blank walls before 
noble colonnades. Perhaps they were matters of 
necessity. Let the artistic Howadji hope they were. 

Immediately in front of the great pylon is the 
green Nile plain. But sand-drifts lie heaped around 
the court of the temple. Patches of coarse hilfeh 
grass are the only vegetation, and a lonely little 
lake of blue water sleeps cold in the sun, leafless 
and waveless as a mountain tarn. 

Bare and imposing is this vast area of desolation. 
But the eye shrinks from its severity, and craves 
grace and picturesqueness. The heights command 
always the sad, wdde prospects. Thither men 
climb and look wistfully at the dim horizon of hu- 
manity, even dreaming, sometimes, that they see be- 
yond. But they are the melancholy men, who live 
high in watch-towers of any kind. Loftily are 
they lifted upon the architecture of thought ; but 
love swoops upward on rainbow pinions, and is lost 
in the sun. The relevance, testy Gunning? 
Simply that picturesqueness is more satisfactory 
than sublimity. So through the great western gate- 
way, across a court with one solitary column erect 
over its fallen peers, which lie their length, shatter- 
ed from their bases in regular rows, as if they had 
been piles of millstones carefully upset, we enter 



336 NILE NOTES. 

the great hall of Karnak. Shall I say, the grandest 
ruin of the world ? 

For this is truly Karnak. Here your heart will 
bow in reverence, and pay homage to the justice 
of this fame. A solemn druidical forest shaped in 
stone, and flowering with the colored sculptured 
forms of dead heroes, and a history complete. Not 
so graceful as the columned grove of the Memno- 
nium, but grand, and soleril*n, and majestic, incon- 
ceivably. 

Through the vast vistas, the eye cannot steal out 
to the horizon, or catch gladly the waving of green 
boughs. Only above, through the open spaces of 
the architrave, it sees the cloudless sky, and the ear 
hears the singing of unseen birds. 

" Is it not strange, I never saw the sun ?" So 
seems the song of birds never to have been heard 
until its sweetness was contrasted with the sublime, 
solemn silence of Karnak. 

Here, could you choose of all men your compan- 
ion, you would call Michel Angelo, and then step 
out and leave him alone. For it is easy to summon 
spirits, but hard to keep them company. And a 
man could better bear the imposing majesty of 
Karnak, than the searching sadness of the artist's 
eye. In the valley of the Nile, Michel Angelo 
would have felt that great artists unknown, saw 



KARNAK. 337 

with their eyes in their way, the form of the grand- 
eur he sought. ■ In Memnon, in the great hall of 
Karnak, distorted as through clouds and mists, yet 
not all unshaped, he would have seen that an ideal 
as grand was worshipped, nor have grieved that it 
was called by another name. His eye, too, would 
have wandered delighted over the mingled sweet- 
ness and severity of the Egyptian landscape, vast 
and silent, and sun-steeped as the inner realm in 
which he lived. 

Failing Michel Angelo, there were other figures 
in the hall. Sundry veiled spectres were sketch- 
ing the unsketchable. Plaid pantaloons and turban- 
ed wide-awakes flitted among the figures of gods 
and heroes. I saw a man with a callotype, invest- 
ing Karnak. — Nimrod has mounted — tally-ho ! 

Nor fear a jest in Karnak, nor suppose a ringing 
laugh can destroy this silence. We speak, and the 
stillness ripples around the sound, and swallows it 
as tracelessly as mid-ocean a stone. Nor because 
Karnak is solemn, suppose that we must be senti- 
mental. The Howadji sat upon a sloping stone, 
and eat sardine sandwiches, deserting with dates 
and the chibouque, and the holy of holies was not 
less holy, nor the grandeur less grand. 

In the afternoon we wandered over the whole 

wilderness of ruin, studying the sculptures, de- 
15 



338 NILE NOTES. 

ciphering the cartouches, stumbling and sliding in 
the sand down to temples, whose colored archi- 
traves showed level with the ground, so deeply 
were they buried. For travel and opportunity have 
their duties. But we returned to the great hall, 
as thought always will return to it, from grubbing 
in the wondrous waste of Egypt, and at sunset as- 
cended the great pylon and looked across the river 
westward, to the Libyan suburb. 

The Howadji returned the next day to Karnak ; 
and the next, a golden sunset streamed through 
it as they were finally departing. In the tenderness 
of its serene beauty, Karnak became beautiful, too. 
The colors upon the architraves and columns shone 
more deeply, and a rainbow-radiance permeated the 
solemn hall. Nimrod was coursing through the 
Libyan suburb. Glowingly golden ranged the level 
grain, rank on rank, to the river. The birds gushed 
with their swift, sweet, sunset songs. How young, 
how shadowy were we, in that austere antiquity ! 
Was it compassion that unbent its awful gravity ? 

No, gad-fiy ! stinging my perpendicular trotting 
insensibility. Souls like ours conceived, hands like 
ours fashioned, this awful Karnak. Never succumb 
to Karnak, gad-fly! Man shaped the desert into this 
divinity. Pj^gmalion carved the statue that smote 
his soul with love. 



XLIV. 

PRUNING. 

A SACRIFICIAL sheep stood in the starlight on the 
shore at Luxor. The golden-sleeved Commander 
was profoundly religious, and proposed to hold a 
sacred feast of sheep — " a swarry of biled mutton," 
as later poets have it — upon his return to Cairo. 
The victim was put below, the crew rose from 
squatting on the shore and came aboard, and with 
plaintive songs and beating oars we drifted down the 
river once more, and watched the dim Theban 
mountains melt slowly away into invisibility. 

You fancy the Nile voyage is a luxury of languid 
repose — a tropical trance. There the warm winds 
lave groves forever green, of which, shivering in 
our wintry palaces, we dream. Stealing swiftly 
over the Mediterranean, you would, swallow-like, 
follow the summer, and shuffling off the coil of care 
at Cairo, would southward sail to the equator, hap- 
piness, and mountains of the moon. 

Well, single days are that delight, and to me, the 



340 NILE NOTES. 

whole voyage, but possibly not to you. A diamond 
decked damsel is not a single jewel, although haply, 
to the distant eye, she brilliantly blaze like a star. 
Therefore, to the distance of hope and memory, will 
the Nile wear its best hue. Nor will we quarrel. 
To hope, all things are forgiven. Let us pardon 
memory that it remembers like a lover. 

It is hard to believe in winds under a cloudless 
sky, or to feel chilly when the sun shines brightl3^ 
The mind cannot readily separate the climate from 
the character of the land. We never fancy gales 
in church-yards, only sad twilight breaths, and 
Egypt being a tomb, to imagination, how should 
there be windy weather ? 

A tomb — ^but a temple. From the minaretted 
mosques of Cairo you descend into it, and well be- 
lieve that the back door opens into heaven. The 
river is its broad, winding avenue. The glaring 
mountains, its walls, the serene sky, its dome. On 
either hand, as you advance, is the way sculptured 
with green grain and palms of peace, as in those 
Theban tombs. And more splendid are the niches 
of the dead here, than the palaces of the living — 
Karnak, the Memnonium, Kum Ombos, Aboo Sim- 
bel. Ghosts are their tenants now — Champollion, 
Lepsius, and Sir Gardner, the tireless Old Mortali- 
ties that chisel their fading characters. 



PliUNING. 341 

Here are enough buried to populate the world. 
The priests told Herodotus a succession of more 
than three hundred kings. The thought bores anti- 
quity like an Artesian well. The Howadji looks 
upon Karases as a modern, and grudges him that 
name of great. He appears everywhere. From 
the pyramids to Aboo Simbel, in all the best places 
of the best remains, his cartouche is carved. Why 
was he great ? What do we know, who call him 
so, but the fact of his being a conqueror and a 
builder of temples with the captives he caught, to 
sculpture the walls with the story of their own de- 
feat ? 

Tamerlane the Great tickles the ear as well. 
Vain he clearly was, and enterprising. Let his 
greatness be proved. Ah ! had we been Athenians, 
should we not have black-balled the bejusted Aris- 
tides ? 

When you descend into this tomb so stately, the 
western world recedes, and you hear of it no more, 
and wonder only how easily you can accustom 
yourself to know nothing that happens in the 
world. The sleep of Egypt steals into your soul. 
Here, to apprise you of cotemporary affairs, roars 
no thunderous " Times''' ; no eclectic *' GaliornanV^ 
reaches, speaking all sentiments and espousing none. 
No safe " Debats'^ is here. No rocket-sparkling 



342 NILE NOTES. 

" Fresse^ No heavy-freighted ^^Allgemeine Zeitu7ig*^ 
lumbers along this way, making a canal of the Nile. 
On this golden air float no yearling Italian leaves 
gracefully traced v^ith dream-lines of liberty. How 
much less any "JfieraM," hot with special expresses 
from Grim Tartary, or thoughtful ''Tribune,'''' obvi- 
ating the obliquity of the earth's axis. 

You take your last draught of news at Cairo, and 
are the devotee of the old till you return. Know- 
ing all this, how can the traveller, much more the 
anti-rolliiig-stone partisans, who read of sunshine 
in the glow of Liverpool or anthracite, imagine 
wind in Egypt ? Wind ! type of active life in that 
death-silence ! No, no, say you, hie to Egypt, and 
be still and warm. 

Still ? Why, the wild winds pace up and down 
the valley of the Nile, like his mad hounds howling 
for Acteon, like all the ghosts of all the three hun- 
dred dynasties anterior to history, demanding to 
live again. Ally of the desert, the wind whirls the 
sand into columns and clouds that sweep athwart 
the eternal smile of the sky, and sink, death-dealing, 
upon the plain. It smites the palms, and as they 
stretch straight their flexile limbs, utterly consumes 
their grace. It tortures the river into a foamy, bil- 
lowy swell, and the soul of the be-veiled, be-gog- 
gled traveller into rage and despair. Unless, indeed. 



PRUNING. 343 

it favor his course. Then all is forgiven. Even 
the loss of the calm, v^hich the character of the 
land requires, is forgiven; for he fancies windless 
days returning, and dreamy drifting upon the 
stream. 

So did we. Glad when the Ibis fled with full 
wings, we prophesied the peace of our return, and 
the gentle gliding before southerly winds. Yet the 
wind that blew us from Asyoot to Aboo Simbel 
did not end its voyage with ours. As we returned, 
the northerly wind blew for a month, lulling a little 
now and then, even at times yielding to the south. 
But no sooner were we upon our way, than it was 
off with us. Sometimes it slept with us at night ; 
but infallibly rose before we did at morning. 
*' Dream-life," said. Nero, at Thebes, deciphering a 
Greek inscription on Memnon's shin. " What with 
sketching, shooting, reading, writing, and all in this 
inexorable wind, a pretty dream-life I find it." 
There are the poets, again, guilty of another count ! 

Warm ? Why, the Howadji sat more volumin- 
ously swathed in coats, cloaks, and shawls, than a 
mummy in his spiced bandages. They began brave- 
ly, with sitting in front of the cabin, and warmly 
wrapped in winter clothes, and only a little chilly, 
played that it was summer, and conversed in a fee- 
ble, poetic way, of the Egyptian climate. Gradu- 



344 NILE NOTES. 

ally they retreated to the divans in the cabin, and 
cursed the cold. I was sure that a blue fleet of 
icebergs had undertaken the Nile voyage, and were 
coming up behind us. I knew that we should 
meet white bear for hippopotami, wah'uses for 
crocodiles, and the north pole for the equa- 
tor. Why not push on and find Sir John 
Franklin ! 

So the wind and cold hovered, awful, upon the 
edges of dreaming. Southward, southward, no 
hope but the tropic, and we entered the tropic one 
chilly morning that would not let me think of 
Mungo Park, but only of Captain Parry. 

cow-horned Isis, and thou, western Athor, 
forgive, that so far this pen could go, so much trea- 
son trace, to the eternal warm repose of your land. 
Yet only by a force that compelled exaggeration 
could it be induced. The book is closed now — the 
daguerreotype of those days. Egypt is given to 
the past, and memory shows it windless as a pic- 
ture. There it lies golden-shored in eternal sum- 
mer. I confess it now — Egypt is that dream-land, 
that tropical trance. There lingers the fadeless 
green, of which, shivering in our white wintry 
palaces, we dream. The howling ghosts are laid ; 
those wild winds have all blown themselves away ; 
that fleet of icebergs has joined the Spanish Armada. 



PRUNING. 345 

The Nile does not lead to the North-west Passage, 

nor is Mungo Park a myth. 

Memory is the magician. She cuts the fangs 

from the snakes that stung the past, and wreaths 

them, rainbow garlands, around its paling brows. 

The evil days are not remembered. Time, as a 

purging wind, blows them like dead leaves away, as 

winds window the woods in autumn. 
15* 



XLV. 

PER CONTRA. 

For the dream-days dawn — lotus-eating days of 
faith in the poets as the only practical people, be- 
cause all the world is poetry — of capitulation to 
Bishop Berkeley, and confession that only we exist, 
and the rest is sheer seeming — when thought is ar- 
duous, and reading wasteful, and the smoke of the 
chibouque scarcely aerial enough — days that dis- 
solve the world in light. The azure air and azure 
water mingle. We float in rosy radiance, through 
which waves the shore — a tremulous opacity. 

In the Arabian Night days of life, come, haunt- 
ingly, vague desires to make the long India voyage. 
The pleasant hiatus in actual life — the musing mo- 
notony of the day — the freedom of the imagination 
on a calm sea, under a cloudless sky — the far float- 
ings before trade-winds — the strange shores embow- 
ered with tropical luxuriance, and an exhaustless 
realm of new experience, are the forms and fascina- 
tion of that longing. 



PER CONTRA. 347 

But the Nile more fairly realizes that dream- 
voyage. The blank monotony of sea and sky is 
relieved here by the tranquil, ever-varying, grace- 
ful shores, the constant panorama of a life new to 
the eye, oldest to the mind, and associations unique 
in history. The palms, the desert, the fair fertility 
of unfading fields, mosques, minarets, camels, the 
broad beauty of the tranced river — these unsphere 
us, were there no Thebes, no Sphinx, no Memnon, 
Pyramids, or Karnak, no simple traditions of Scrip- 
ture, and wild Arabian romances — the sweetest 
stories of our reading. 

In the early morning, flocks of water-birds are 
ranged along the river — herons, kingfishers, flamin- 
goes, ducks, ibis — a motley multitude in the shadow 
of the high clay banks, or on the low sandy strips. 
They spread languid wings, and sail snowily away. 
The sun strikes them into splendor. They float and 
fade, and are lost in the brilliance of the sky. Under 
the sharp, high rocks, at the doors of their clifl'-re- 
treats, sit sagely the cormorants, and meditate the 
passing Howadji. Like larger birds reposing, shine 
the sharp sails of boats near or far. Their images 
strike deep into the water and tremble away. 

Then come the girls and women to the water-side, 
bearing jars upon their heads. On the summit of 
the bank they walk erect and stately, profile-drawn 



34S NILE NOTES. 

against the sky. Bending, and plashing, and play- 
ing in the 'water, with little jets of laugh that would 
brightly flash, irVe could see them, they fill their 
jars, and in a long file recede and disappear among the 
palms. Over the brown mud villages the pigeons 
coo and fly, and hang by hundreds upon the clumsy 
towers built for them, and a long pause of sun and 
silence follows. 

Presently turban ned Abraham with flowing gar- 
ment and snowy beard, leaning upon his staff, passes 
with Sarah along the green path on the river's edge 
toward Memphis and King Pharaoh. On the oppo- 
site desert lingers Hagar with Ishmael, pausing, 
pausing, and looking back. 

The day deepens, calmer is the calm. It is noon, 
and magnificent Dendereh stands inland on the 
desert edge of Libya, a temple of rare preservation, 
of Isis-headed columns, with the same portrait of 
Cleopatra upon the walls — a temple of silence, with 
dark chambers cool from the sun, and the sculptures 
in cabinet squares upon the wall. Let it float by, 
no more than a fleeting picture forever It is St. 
Valentine's Day, but they are harvesting upon the 
shores, resting awhile now, till the sun is sloping. 
The shadeless Libyan and Arabian highlands glare 
upon the burning sun. The slow sakias sing and 
sigh. The palms are moveless as in the backgrounds 



PER CONTRA. 349 

of old pictures. To our eyes it is perpetual picture 
slowly changing. The shore-lines melt into new 
forms, other, yet the same. We know not if we 
wake or sleep, so dream-like exquisite is either sleep- 
ing or waking. 

The afternoon declines as we drift slowly under 
Aboofayda with a soft south wind. Its cliffs are like 
masses of old masonry, and wheeling hawks swoop 
downward to its sharp, bold peaks. Ducks are 
diving in the dark water of its shadow. The white 
radiance of the noon is more rosily tinged. Every 
form is fairer in the westering light. We left Asyoot 
yesterday; at evening we saw its many minarets 
fade in the dark of the hills, like the strains of ara- 
besqued Arabian songs dying in the twilight, and at 
dusk a solitary jackal prowled stealthily along the 
shore. Joseph's brethren pass with camels and 
asses, to buy corn in Egypt. Geese in arrowy flight 
pierce the profound repose of the sky. Golden 
gloom gathers in the palm-groves. Among the 
scaled trunks, like columns of a temple, passes a 
group of girls attending Pharaoh's daughter. Shall 
we reach the shore before her, and find the young 
Moses, Nile-nursed with the sweet sound of calmly 
flowing waters, and the sublime silence of the sky ? 

The sun sets far over Libya. He colors the death 
of the desert, as he tinges the live sea in his setting 



350 NILE NOTES. 

Dark upon the molten west, in waving, rounding 
lines, the fading flights of birds are yet traced, seek- 
ing the rosy south, or following the sun. The day 
dies divinely as it lived. Primeval silence surrounded 
us all the time. What life and sound we saw and 
heard, no more jarred the silence, than the aurora 
lights the night. What a wild myth is wind ! 
Wind — wind, what is wind ? 

The dazzling moon succeeds, and the night is only 
a day more delicate. A solitary phantom bark glides 
singing past — its sail as dark below as above, twin- 
winged in air and water. Whither, whither, ye 
ghostly mariners ? Why so sad your singing ? 
Why so languid-weary the slow plash of oars ? 

The moon in rising glows over Antinoe, under 
whose palms we float, and in the warm hush of the 
evening we see again, and now for the first time per- 
fectly, the rounded ripeness of those lips, the divinely 
drooping lid, the matted curls clinging moist and 
close around the head and neck — the very soul of 
southern Antinous breathed over the Nile. The 
moon, striking the water, paves so golden a path to 
the shore that imagination glides along the dream, 
fades in Arabia, and gaining the Tigris — for the last 
time, incensed reader ! — pays court to the only caliph, 
and is entertained in that west-winded, rose-odored 
street, which the loves and lovers of the caliph know. 



PER CONTRA. 351 

— Or only the stars shine. Strange that in a land 
where stars shine without the modesty of mist, wo- 
men veil their faces. Clearly, Mohammed received 
his inspired leaves in a star-screened cave, and not 
in the full face of heaven. But let him still sus- 
pended be ; for, dimly glancing among the palms, 
silverly haloed by the stars that loved his manger, 
behold the young child and his mother, with Joseph 
leading the ass, flying into the land. 

Tarry under the stars till morning, if you will, 
seeing the pictures that earliest fancy saw, dream- 
ing the dreams that make life worth the living. 
The midnight will be only weirder than the noon, 
not more rapt. Come, Commander, spread that di- 
van into a bed. Galleries of fairest fame are not all 
Raphaels, yet justly deserve their name, and so does 
our river life. 

Good night. Pacha, the day was dreamier than 
your dreamiest dream. 



XLVI. 

MEMPHIS. 



-" From the steep 



Of utmost Axume, until he spreads, 

Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep, 
His waters on the plain ; and crested heads 
Of cities and proud temples gleam amid, 
And many a vapor-belted pyramid." 



" Memphis," said the Commander, as he was rub- 
bing a spoon one morning, pointing with his thumb 
over his shoulder. 

The Howadji turned his eyes westward to behold 
magnificent Memphis — the last royal residence of 
genuine Egypt — the abode of Pharaohs and their 
queens — where Abraham left Sarah, when he went 
on to see the pyramids — a city built in the channel 
of the river, which was diverted by King Menes for 
that purpose. 

The Howadji looked to see the sacred lake over 
which the dead were ferried, and on whose farther 
shore sat the forty-two judges who decreed or de- 
nied the rites of burial. The Acherusian lake near 
Memphis surrounded, as the old Diodorus said, by 



MEMPHIS. 353 

beautiful meadows and canals, fringed with lotus 
and flowering rushes. It was a boat called Baris 
that performed this office, and a penny was paid to 
the boatman, named by the Egyptians, Charon. He 
says that Orpheus carried to Greece the outlines of 
these stories, and Homer hearing, wrought them 
into the Greek mythology. 

The Howadji looked to see the gorgeous temple 
of Isis and of Apis, the bull, who was kept in an in- 
closure, and treated as a god. He had a white mark 
on his forehead, and other small spots on his body, 
the rest being black. And when he died, another 
was selected, from having certain signs, to take his 
place. 

He looked to see the ranges of palaces, which 
Strabo did not see until they were ruined and de- 
serted, and all the pomp of royal, and priestly, and 
burial, processions — the bearers of flowers, fruit, and 
cakes that preceded — the friends in brilliant gar- 
ments that followed — the strewers of palm-boughs 
that paved the way with smooth green, over which 
the funeral car slid more easily — barges of bouquets 
then, and groups of mourners — a high-priest burning 
incense over an altar, and, above, the images of se- 
rene Osiris and his cow-horned spouse. These were 
the pomps and shows he looked to see, and all the 
thousand glowing pictures of a realm without limit 



354 NILE NOTES. 

to the imagination — ^luxuriant life developing in 
the most beautiful and brilliant display. And the 
Howadji turning, saw a few sand mounds, and a 
group of pyramids upon the horizon. 

Nothing remains of Memphis but a colossus of 
Ramses, with his head deeply buried in the earth — 
overflowed yearly by the Nile, yet full of the same 
fascinating character — another representation of the 
old Egyptian type of beauty, shattered and sub- 
merged near a palm -shored lake. Past the lake we 
went, and over the broad belt of green that sepa- 
rates the palms from the desert, and then up the" 
steep sand-slopes to the pyramids of Saccara. 

Standing at the foot of the largest, and looking 
desert ward, the Howadji beheld a landscape which 
is unlike all others. Upon the chaotic desert that 
tumbles eastward from an infinite horizon, jagged in 
sandy billows, that seem, in huge recoil, back falling 
upon themselves, at the edge of the green, rose the 
multitude of pyramids — twelve or more in number 
— near and far — dumb, inexplicable forms — like 
remains of a former creation that had endured, 
through strength, all intervening changes. Dim- 
mest, and farthest of all, the great pyramids of Ghi- 
zeh, looming in the faint haze of noon, like the relics 
of fore-world art, defying curiosity and speculation. 
The solid mass of these structures weighed palpably 



MEMPHIS. 355 

on the mind. A dead antediluvian silence settled 
around them, and seemed to benumb the faculties of 
the observer, unmooring him by its spell from the 
sentient sphere, to let him drift, aimless and without 
guide, into black death and darkness. It was a ba- 
silisk fascination that held the eye to the sight. The 
pyramid-studded desert was the strange verge and 
mingling point of the dead and living worlds. Yet 
they stood there, telling no tales, and the eye, at 
length released, slipped v^illingly far away over the 
palms, and beheld the glittering minarets of Cairo. 

The mummy-merchants were here at Saccara, and 
offered endless treasure of amulet, and idol, and 
iewel, and from the great cat catacomb hard by, and 
the bird-tombs, mummied cats, and deified ibis done 
up in red pots, as the remains and memorials of 
mighty Memphis. 

The Howadji returned over the same glad, green 
plain. They had prowled into a brace of dark, dis- 
mal tombs, and leaned against a pyramid — had seen 
the beautiful statue, with the body broken, and the 
face hidden — a sad symbol — and the pleasant palms 
and sunny green slopes under them. They returned 
through the most spacious and beautiful of palm- 
groves. Forgive their eyes and imaginations that 
they lingered long in those beautiful reaches, ave- 
nues, and vistas. It was as if the genius of palms 



356 NILE NOTES. 

knew that his lovers were passing, and he unrolled 
and revealed his most perfect beauty as an adieu. 
It was a forest of the finest palms — a tropic in itself 
— through whose foliage the blue sky streamed, and 
amid which bright birds flew. They are the last 
palms that shall be planted on these pages, and the 
last that shall fade fi'om memory. The young ones 
seem not to expand from saplings into trees, but to 
spring, Minerva-like, fully formed and foliaged, 
through the earth ; for they bear all their wide- 
waving crest of boughs when they first appear, and 
the trunk is so large that you fancy some gracious 
gnome, intent on adorning a world, is thrusting 
them by main force through the ground. As we 
reached the edge of this cheerful forest, we saw very 
plainly the white citadel of Cairo and its lofty mina- 
rets, high above the city. 

We slipped down to Ghizeh, and the next morn- 
ing donkeyed quietly to the pyramids. Except for 
the sake of the Sphinx, the Howadji would only ad- 
vise the visit to the scientific and curious, and is the 
more willing to say so, because he knows that ever)?" 
traveller would not fail to go. But the pyramids 
were built for the distant eye, and their poetic 
grandeur and charm belong to distance. When your 
eye first strikes them, as you come up from Alexan- 
dria to Cairo, they stand vast, vague, rosy, and dis- 



MEMPHIS. 357 

tant, and are at once and entirely the Egypt of your 
dreams. The river winds and winds, and they seem 
to shift their places, to be now here, now there, now 
on the western shore, now on the eastern, until 
Egypt becomes, to your only too glowing fancy, a 
bright day and a pyramid. 

Walk out beyond the village of Ghizeh at twilight 
then, and see them, not nearer than the breadth of 
the plain. They v/ill seem to gather up the whole 
world into silence, and you will feel a pathos in 
their dumbness, quite below your tears. They have 
outlived speech, and are no more intelligible. Yet 
the freshness of youth still flushes in the sunset along 
their sides, and even these severe and awful forms 
have a beautiful bloom as of Hesperidean fruit, in 
your memory and imagination. The Howadji may 
well learn with pleasure that the Cairo Bedlam is 
abolished, when he feels his memory putting the 
pyramids as flowers in her garden. For they are 
that. They are beautiful no less than awful in re- 
membrance. 

But as you approach, they shrink and shrink ; and 
when you stand at their bases, and cast your eye to 
the apex, they are but vast mountains of masonry, 
sloping upward to the sky. Beastly Bedoueen, im- 
portunate for endless bucksheesh, will pull you, 
breathless and angry, to the summit, and promise to 



35S NILE NOTES. 

run up and over all possible pyramids, and for aught 
you know, throw you across to the peaks of the 
Saccara cousins. Only threats most terrible, and 
entirely impossible of performance, can restore the 
necessary silence. Express distinctly your determi- 
nation to plunge every Bedoueen down the pyramid, 
when they have you dizzy, and breathless, and gasp- 
ing on the sides, as you go up from layer to layer, 
like stairs — swear horribly in your gasping and rage, 
that you will only begin by throwing them down, 
but conclude by annihilating the whole tribe who 
haunt the pyramids, and you work a miracle. For 
the Bedoueen become as placidly silent as if your 
threats were feasible, and only mutter mildly, 
" Bucksheesh, Howadji," like retiring and innocent 
thunder. 

There are, also, who explore the pyramids ; who, 
from poetic or other motives, go into an utterly dark, 
hot, and noisome interior, see a broken sarcophagus, 
feel that they are encased in solid masonry of some 
rods from the air, hear the howls of Bedoueen, and 
smell their odors, and return faint, exhausted, smoke- 
blackened, with their pockets picked, and their 
nerves direfully disturbed. Poet Harriet advises 
none but firmly-nerved ladies to venture, and the 
Howadji may add the same advice to all but firm- 
ly-nerved men. To such, the exploration of the 



MEMPHIS. 359 

pyramids may be as it was to Nero — a grand and 
memorable epoch in life. For he said that he felt 
the greatness of old Egypt more profoundly in the 
pyramids than anywhere else. 

Yet you must seek the pyramids, else would you 
miss the Sphinx, and that memory of omission 
would more sadly haunt you afterward, than her rid- 
dle haunted the old victims of her spells. 

The desert is too enamored of his grotesque dar- 
ling, and gradually gathers around it, and draws it 
back again to his bosom. For it well seems the child 
of desert inspiration. Intense oriental imagination, 
musing over the wonderful waste' would build its 
dreams in shapes as singular. It lies on the very 
edge of the desert, which recoils above the plain 
as at Saccara. The sand has covered it, and only 
head, neck, and back are above its level. In vain 
Caviglia strove to stay the desert. More than half 
of the sand that he daily excavated, blew back 
at][ain at nisjhto 

The Sphinx, with raised head, gazes expectantly 
toward the East, nor dropped its eyes when Cam- 
byses or Napoleon -came. The nose is gone, and 
the lips are gradually going. The constant attri- 
tion of sand-grains wears them away. The back is 
a mass of rock, and the temple between the fore- 
paws is buried forever. Still unread is my riddle, 



360 



NILE NOTES. 



it seems to say, and looks, untiring, for him who 
shall solve it. Its beauty is more Nubian than 
Egyptian, or is rather a blending of both. Its 
bland gaze is serious and sweet. Yet unwinking, 
unbending, in the yellow moonlight silence of those 
desert sands, will it breathe mysteries more magical, 
and rarer romances of the mountains of the moon 
and the Nile sources, than ever Arabian imagination 
dreamed. Be glad that the Sphinx was your last 
wonder upon the Nile ; for it seemed to contain and 
express the rest. And from its thinned and thin- 
ning lips, as you move back to the river with all 
Egypt behind you, trails a voice inaudible, like a 
serpent gorgeously folding about your memory — 
Egypt and mystery, Sphinx ! 




H< 



XLVII. 

SUNSET. 

" Tired witli the pomp of their Osirean feast."' 

" With all Egypt behind you," — so donkeyed 
the Howadji from the Sphinx and the silence of 
the desert. They reached the shore and stepped 
upon the boat while the sun was wreaking all his 
glory upon the west. It burned tUrough the trees 
and over the little town of Ghizeh, and its people 
and filth, and as we moved into the stream, the 
pyramids occupied the west, unhurt for that seeing, 
large and eternal as ever, with the old mystery — 
the old charm. 

The river was full of boats, in, th^'"vicinity of the 

city. The wind blew gently from the north, and 

fleets of sails were stretching whitely southward. 

Even some Howadji were just dotting down their 

first Nile notes, and we, mariners of two months, 

felt old and mature as we watched them. Had we 

not worshipped at Aboo Simbel and conquered the 
16 



362 



NILE NOTES. 



cataract, and heard Memnon, and stood on Mem- 
phis ? 

Back in that sunset came thronging the fairest 
images of the Nile ; and may sweet Afchor, lovely 
lady of the West, enable you, retiring reader, to 
stand looking backward over these pages, and be- 
hold a palm-tree, or a rosy pyramid, or Memnon, 
or a gleam of sunshine brighter than our American 
wont, or the graceful Ghawazee beauty that the 
voyager so pleasantly remembers. 

— And you, Italian Nera, who ask if the sherbet 
of roses was indeed poured in a fountained kiosk of 
Damascus, you know that Hafiz long since sang to 
us, how sad were the sunset, were we not sure of, a 
morrow. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




